Halloween of 1978 was going to be the absolute best Halloween Lauren ever had. At twelve years old, she was in prime physical form to last for hours of trick-or-treating. She was also still small enough to elicit exclamations of delight from homeowners about the cuteness of her costume, which earned her extra candy at every house. Normally she fumed when people assumed she was younger than she was, but on one night of the year she milked her diminutiveness for all it was worth.

She was also wearing the best costume she and her father had ever made together, and she was excited to show it off. It was a full suit of samurai armour, crafted of pieces of cardboard painted crimson and lacquered, and knit together with bits of rawhide. It had taken weeks to make but it was worth it. It was supposed to be a chilly night, so she wore it over the uwagi, obi and hakama she already used when practicing aikido with her dad. She decided against a helmet, though; she wanted to be able to see where she was going while she walked, and it was already going to be dark. Her hair had grown a little since the summer, though, so she completed her look with a chonmage, a traditional top knot worn by the samurai to hold their hair away from their heads in battle. 

Best of all, she was allowed to wear her bokken strapped to her belt. There was no way Dad would ever let her take Grandpa's sword, it was too sacred, and frankly too dangerous, to take as part of a costume; if some kid got their hands on it and swung it around, it could take a hand off or worse. The bokken was an adequate substitute, though; she practiced with it because it was blunt wood but curved in the same way the sword was, and the same weight as the sword, so it still looked fierce, and no one would mess with her while she carried it.

Lastly, she was going to go trick-or-treating with the best friends she ever had. She'd only known Rachel, Al, Joe and Sunny for a few months, but they'd already had more fun together than she could ever remember having had in Richmond. Rachel had incorporated the Lawrence Street Detective Club, and they'd already found one dog and passed off another dog as a dog that had died, the very dog over whom they'd met, and had made good money from it. She and Rachel shared a paper route, and they got to spend hours together, chatting, laughing and talking about the boys behind their backs. Especially Joe. 

She hoped Joe would be impressed with her costume. Something about him fascinated her. The hair, surely, but something else, as well. A quiet capability that was very reassuring. She liked that when that old lady had tricked them into landscaping her backyard by pretending she'd lost something in that overgrown jungle, he hadn't complained or gotten indignant and walked away from the job. He'd gone right to work, and had shown the rest of them what to do with their tools while he'd attacked the lawn with the mower. That was the kind of boy he was. He was almost older than his years. 

Al and Sunny were nice, too, and not afraid of work, either, since they'd gotten the neighbouring paper route to Lauren and Rachel's once they'd heard how easy it was to get one. They were all so easy and companionable, and she thanked her lucky stars every day that they'd taken her in and made her one of their own.

There was also another unexpected treat today. It was a school day, so they got to wear their costumes to class. Then, after school, they were all invited to Al's house, because October 31 also happened to be his birthday. What luck! He got to have presents and have his friends captive to his trick-or-treat route because they'd already be at his place when they started! Luckily, all of Al's friends already happened to live on his street. Still, she couldn't think of a better birthday for a kid: it was in the school year, so no one could decline to come because they were away for the summer; it was two fun events in one day; and last, but not least, presents and candy were guaranteed.

She emerged from her apartment, suited and ready with her school bag over her shoulder, and breathed in the fresh morning air. She went down what Rachel called the zig zag stairs and stood in front of Rachel's door, wondering if she should knock.

Just as she raised her hand to do so, the door flew open, and Rachel stood there, face crumpled and tear streaked, in something that looked like a torn sheet. "It's ruined!" she wailed.

"Rachel, are you okay?" she asked, confused.

"No!" she growled. "I screwed up my costume and now it's ruined, and I don't have anything to wear to school and trick-or-treating!"

Lauren scanned what she wore a little closer. She didn't know what Rachel was going for, but it was obviously homemade. She knew Rachel and her dad didn't have much money, so she couldn't visualize the two of them going into town for something store bought. Rachel's dad never had the time anyway, because he was always working.

She put a hand on Rachel's shoulder and said. "Don't worry. We'll fix it."

"It's too late! It's already time to go to school!"

Lauren thought furiously about what they could do. She couldn't bear to see her friend so sad.

Then an idea came to her. "Maybe you can wear part of my costume."

"Huh?" Rachel looked up at her, her teary, snotty face frowning in confusion. It seemed only now she noticed what Lauren was wearing. "Oh. What are you? A robot?"

"A robot?!" she asked incredulously, and laughed. "I'm a samurai."

"Oh, sorry," she mumbled. She was still miserable. "What's that?"

"A Japanese warrior. You know the sword I showed you? They used to be carried only by samurai. They were high ranking men, landowners; peasants weren't allowed to use them. They would fight in battles, and if their lords died they would have to kill themselves because they couldn't serve anybody else."

Rachel grimaced. "That sounds horrible. Who would want to be a samurai?"

Lauren waved off her disparaging remark. "It was a different time back then."

"So... you're going as a man?"

Lauren blinked in surprise. She'd never thought of it that way. "No. Why does it matter, anyway? I like the costume, and anyway, I think there were some historical Japanese women who posed as samurai to make their way in the world. I bet they were pretty cool."

Rachel sniffed and wiped her nose, and thought about it a moment. "Women warriors, huh? That does sound pretty cool."

"Yeah. Look, I have some clothes under this that can look costumey if you don't know what it is. You can wear them and look like a Japanese martial artist, if you want."

Rachel's eyes finally brightened. There was the girl Lauren liked so much. "You'd do that for me?"

"Of course! I have other clothes I can put under this. Let me go get them and then we can change together."

"Okay!" Now Rachel was excited.

Lauren zipped back up the stairs and hurriedly informed her mom she was lending Rachel her uwagi, obi and hakama to wear as a costume.

Her mom called out, "Isn't she a little big for your clothes?"

Lauren stopped in the middle of stripping out of her costume, which seemed to be harder than putting it on because she was trying to do it fast. She hadn't thought of that, and the thought annoyed her. "We'll think of something," she said.

After she put on other underclothes, strapped her armour back on and collected the costume she intended to lend to Rachel, she flew back downstairs, her bokken rattling off the metal bars of the staircase, almost tripping her up. Rachel's door was open, and she waited inside, in her underwear, rubbing her arms for warmth.

Lauren hadn't expected Rachel to be stripped down already, and it was a surprise to see her so close to naked and so vulnerable. Even in their sleepovers, Rachel always wore an oversize shirt that covered her down to her knees. She was almost fully exposed now, and Lauren felt a fluttery feeling in her stomach, seeing Rachel's long legs and arms, the goosebumps prickling her creamy skin, a shade lighter than Lauren's own. It made her feel nervous and excited at the same time, and she didn't know why. She wanted to reach out and stroke her leg, feel the goosebumps under her fingers, and maybe the fine hairs on her arms, too...

"Jeez, you took forever, where were you?" Rachel asked, shivering, snapping Lauren out of her daydream.

"Sorry," Lauren muttered, feeling her cheeks redden. She handed her the clothes. "It took longer than I thought. Why didn't you wait to strip down?"

"We're already late. I thought I'd save time. How do you put this on?"

Lauren helped her, and to her dismay she realized her mom was right. The top left her belly exposed and was not long enough in the arms, and the bottom was too high up on the shins.

To her surprise, Rachel chuckled. "I forgot you were shorter than me. You're always so much larger than life, Lauren."

Lauren felt all warm inside at Rachel's words. Her admonition from before didn't sting anymore now that she had that compliment to treasure. "Can you wear something underneath it to keep warm?" she asked.

"Yeah, we'll work it out."

By the time they left Rachel's apartment, they found that Al was only just coming up the way, so maybe they weren't so late after all. He was wearing a white, long sleeved button-down shirt with black vest, black pants and boots, and a toy ray gun at his belt. 

"Happy birthday!" she and Rachel said at the same time.

"Thanks!" Al said, then took a good look at them. "Wow! You two look cool! What are you supposed to be?"

Rachel blushed a little at the compliment. Lauren smiled. "I'm a samurai, and she's my squire." That wasn't historically accurate, but he didn't need to know that.

"That looks like it took a long time to make," he marvelled, reaching out to stroke one of the armour plates.

"It did. What are you?" she asked, though she already knew.

"Han Solo from Star Wars. My dad let me use one of his old vests." He drew his ray gun and mimicked shooting it. "Pew! Pew!"

"Aren't you cold?" Rachel asked.

As if the very suggestion had triggered his body to respond the way it was supposed to, he began to shiver and rub his arms. "Yeah. Kinda."

"Put on a coat for now, and then take it off at school to show off your costume," Lauren suggested.

His eyes brightened. "Okay!" He hurried back to his house, and a minute later he was in a coat, with his school bag that he'd also forgotten in his enthusiasm for the day. They probably wouldn't be learning much today, anyway.

They caught up to Joe and Sunny in their classroom. Sunny had jumped aboard the Star Wars train with Al and sported a simple Luke Skywalker outfit, complete with a toy lightsaber, the official one made by Kenner.

Joe, to Lauren's amazement, was green.

"What in the world are you?" she squawked.

He folded his arms and sniffed. "I'm the Incredible Hulk, like in the TV show."

"What's the Incredible Hulk?" she asked, reaching out to touch his green long-sleeved shirt, which had the impression of muscles drawn on in black felt pen, and his face and hands, which were covered in bright green make-up. Even his normally beautiful auburn hair was spray painted green. He wore blue jeans torn below the knees, and to her surprise he was barefoot, his feet also green.

"He's a superhero," Joe said. "He's really strong, but he only changes into this form when he's really angry. Normally the guy is this smart, mild-mannered scientist. He got blasted with radiation, that's why he becomes this big green guy. It's really cool, because you know it's going to get good when his eyes glow green, and he's about to change. The guy is played by two different actors; the big green guy is played by Lou Ferrigno, he's an Italian bodybuilder!"

Joe had strung more words together in that explanation than she'd heard him say in all the time she'd known him. He was a real fan of this superhero, apparently. All of them seemed amazed to hear him talk so much.

"Will that stuff come off?" Al asked.

"Eventually," Joe said. "I'll be doing a lot of scrubbing tonight after I get back from trick or treating."

"My dad's ordering pizza for tonight, and there'll be cake," Al said, "so don't eat too much candy before dinner."

"Yum!" they all said.

They tried to pay attention in class. Mrs. Morrisey, their teacher, did her best to keep a lid on the boiling pot of excitement, but by lunch time they were boiling over, and not taking care of their dress, leaving coats off while they went outside to show off their costumes. 

Joe and another classmate were playing hockey cards against the wall, and he didn't see the school principal approaching until it was too late. "Mr. DiTomaso!" she shrieked. She always used the prefix when she was angry. "What are you doing without your shoes on?!"

Lauren watched what happened next as if it were a car accident in slow motion. The principal grabbed Joe by the ear and tugged him back into the classroom. The other kids watched in horrified fascination. They rarely saw the principal getting involved in discipline unless it was for the most extreme instances of delinquency.

Lauren thought he would be back outside as soon as he put his shoes on, but he was gone for the rest of the lunch hour. In his absence, some of the jerks in the class worked up the courage to make snide remarks about Lauren's and Rachel's costumes. Joe exuded a force field of menace around the five of them just by his size alone, and now, having witnessed the biggest boy in class humiliated by the scariest grown-up in the school, Francis O'Rourke and Paul Baxter took the opening offered and strode up to them. "Joe shouldn't have made Mrs. Burnett angry," Francis said. "You wouldn't like her when she's angry."

The two louts laughed at what seemed to be some kind of joke. "Ha, ha, very funny," Sunny said. He turned to them and said, "The main character says something like that in the Hulk show."

"What are you two supposed to be?" Paul asked, referring to Lauren and Rachel. "Some kind of Jedi knights like Sunny, here? Or are you a robot?" 

Again with the robot! "I'm a samurai," Lauren said. "A warrior of medieval Japan. George Lucas based the Jedi on the samurai, you know."

The two looked dumbly at her for a second. 

"And I'm her squire," Rachel announced, rather proudly, to Lauren's surprise.

"You can't be a squire, you're a girl!" Francis said. "I know that much at least from reading books about knights."

"You read?" Sunny asked, rather daringly, but they didn't even turn their attention to him. They were in the dangerous stage of childhood where they were aware of the opposite sex now, and carried their nasty physicality into small acts of sexual violence: pinches, pats on the bum, bumping hips. Lauren didn't suffer them as much because, being small and still undeveloped, she wasn't noticed much. Rachel, though, had eyes on her a lot now.

"I can be whatever I want to be!" Rachel protested, too weakly to put them off.

"We're warrior women," Lauren added to back her up. "They had those even back then."

"Oh yeah," Francis mocked, taking a menacing step forward. "You think you can make war? You think you can take on the boys?"

"Leave them alone!" Al shouted, in a rare display of courage, probably because Rachel was being threatened; Lauren could already tell he had a crush on her. "You don't touch the girls! You know that!"

Paul pushed Al down so fast he didn't even know what hit him until a second later. The shock of it more than anything made him cry.

"I'm telling the teacher!" Sunny warned.

"I dare you!" Paul warned. "See what happens!"

You didn't snitch in school. Everybody knew that, even rule-followers like Al. Sunny stood paralyzed with indecision, whether to run to teacher or try to tough it out.

Francis sneered and took another step forward, reaching out a hand to touch Rachel on the chest. "Do the warrior girls have boobies under there?"

Before Lauren knew what she was doing, she grabbed the hand, and the arm it was attached to, stepped into him perpendicularly, put a foot between his and launched him over her shoulder in a perfect execution of the Koshi nage move her father taught her for incapacitating larger opponents. Francis went down hard and was visibly winded by the move.

Before Paul could even react to such an unexpected development, Lauren had the bokken in her hand and pointed at him. "You think I can take you on now?" she asked, lazily swiping the air.

Paul, stunned, helped Francis to his feet and backed him away. "You're psycho!" he said.

"Yeah! Tell all your friends!" Lauren shouted after them. "Then tell them how a girl threw you to the ground!"

When they were gone, Rachel turned to her and said, "Holy shit, Lauren! You kicked the boys' asses!" 

"That was awesome!" Al breathed, wiping his eyes, not even embarrassed he'd been crying. This development trumped all other concerns. "I just hope they don't tell on you."

"They won't," Sunny said, helping Al up. "They'd look too weak if they did." He looked at the lightsaber in his hand and said, "Why didn't I use this on them?"

"It's just a toy," Lauren said. "They'd have taken it out of your hands and snapped it in two. Mine is solid wood, it can break bones."

"Careful!" Rachel hissed. "Don't say things like that if there are teachers around, they might confiscate it."

Some of the other kids had seen what had happened and crept forward to congratulate Lauren on taking a bully down a peg. The girls were especially enthralled by her. "Can you teach us to do that move?" they asked, and Lauren, pleased at the attention, showed them step by step how to do it, demonstrating on a few willing volunteers in a way that gently lowered them to the ground as opposed to the full throw down she'd pulled on Francis O'Rourke.

Lauren returned from lunch break feeling on top of the world, for once the classroom hero. 

Then she saw Joe. 

He was back at his desk, hunched over, head down on his arms. He had shoes on. 

"Joe?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

He sniffed, rubbed his face on his arm, and looked up at her. His green make-up was smeared on his cheeks. "Uh, yeah, fine," he said unconvincingly. He'd been thoroughly chastised, and he'd been crying. She wouldn't mention that, though. Joe could not be seen as a crier, or the Francises and Pauls of the class would smell blood in the water.

She reached over from her desk and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry that happened to you."

"She marched me through every classroom to show the kids what not to do on Halloween day," he muttered. "I just forgot I didn't have shoes on. The Hulk never has shoes on. They always rip off his feet because his feet get so big when he changes. He must have to buy a lot of shoes."

Lauren was so surprised that Joe had said something funny that she burst out laughing. Joe was surprised too, and he started laughing because she was laughing, and she could see she was making him feel better, and she was glad. 

They walked home from school back in Joe's fold, and no one gave them any grief. They dropped off their school bags, grabbed their gifts, and converged on Al's house for pizza and cake, Rachel looking askance at Hunter and Duchess, the family Dobermans, the whole time as she ate. She leaned into Lauren and said, "You'll use your stick on them if they attack us, won't you?"

"Relax, they probably want your pizza more than they want you."

They sang Happy Birthday, and Al opened his gifts, Star Wars figures mainly, except for the one Rachel gave him, a friendship bracelet, which was something she'd made, because her dad was too busy to shop downtown at the major toy stores, and he didn't have a car to go there anyway. Lauren wasn't surprised when Al fawned over Rachel's gift most of all, especially when she tied it around his wrist; Rachel had told her she'd kissed Al on the cheek in the summer, and that had probably been the best gift of all to him.

They went trick-or-treating. Joe wore his shoes, Al looked like Han Solo with a friendship bracelet on (he never took it off, as far as Lauren knew; it had probably disintegrated on his wrist over time), Sunny brought his little sister along because he had to, Luke Skywalker grudgingly holding hands with a stylized kitty cat, and it was exactly as Lauren hoped it would be. They spent hours going to the very houses they visited on their paper routes, using pillowcases for bags, and by the end of the night they were nearly dragging their bags home with their haul. 

Joe went home and began the process of scouring away his makeup. Rachel met her dad coming home from work and showed him the costume Lauren let her use and the candy she got, and he was suitably impressed with both. They also found their allocation of papers had arrived for tomorrow's delivery, and it made Lauren feel tired just looking at it. Rachel brought it into her apartment.

Lauren found her dad waiting when she got home and, as her mom emptied the bag of candy on the floor to sort through, picking out unwrapped items and looking for the fabled razor blades in the chocolate bars, she rushed over and threw her arms around him. "The costume was a hit!" she said. "Thanks, Daddy."

"I'm happy it worked out for you. Did you have to explain what it was?"

"A couple of times. A couple of boys gave us grief about it."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I heard you lent Rachel your gear."

"Yeah, she'll bring it back tomorrow when we do our route. She got some unwanted attention from Francis and Paul, so I had to throw Francis down, Koshi nage, Daddy!"

"You got in a fight? With a boy?!" Mom asked, alarmed.

"They were going to hurt Rachel, I had to do something." She didn't mention the bokken, that would have made her freak out more.

"You can't fight at school," Mom said. "What did the teachers say?"

"They weren't around. If they were, those punks wouldn't have tried anything."

Dad nodded, smiled, and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm proud of you for defending your friend. You really like Rachel, don't you."

Lauren shrugged and blushed. "Yeah, I guess. She's my best friend."

When she went to bed that night, though, she couldn't get to sleep right away, mainly because of the excitement of the day, and the sugar, but partly because she couldn't get the image of Rachel's nearly naked body out of her head, and she could almost feel those goosebumps under her fingers. When Dad had asked if she liked her, she didn't think this was what he meant.  

Thanks for reading this far! Here we see the origin of Lauren's feelings for both Joe and Rachel. I loved depicting Joe as the Incredible Hulk as played by Lou Ferrigno in the Seventies TV show. I loved that show when I was a kid. But Lauren continues to surprise when she faces down a bully herself while Big Joe is with the principal. If you liked this chapter, please hit the "Vote" button and leave a comment. Now back to Al and Lauren in the present day. Click on "Continue reading" to read on.