Ann Simmons got the great idea that for Halloween, Mary Beth, Kim and I would dress as Puritans and sit together on the front porch handing out candy and Bible tracts. Mary Beth and Kim both did full-on Halloween party glam makeup, which looked extra-garish when paired with the white Puritan girl caps. I decided to put the method acting lessons from Theater club to work and went barefaced with my hair ruthlessly stapled back under the hat with what seemed like a thousand bobby pins.

Mary Beth and Kim started arguing with me and each other the instant I appeared on the porch.

"Jesus God, Kelsey. At least let me put some blusher on you!" Kim snapped after one glance at my face.

"No! We should do her up zombie!" Mary Beth countered, in a rare bit of enthusiasm for fun that got immediately squelched by her natural mean streak. "I mean, it would suit her personality better."

"Sometimes you just need to shut your trap, Mary Beth," Kim broke off abruptly as Ann reappeared with a fresh load of candy and Bible tracts.

"You girls look great!" Ann chirped. "Kelsey, don't hover. You'll scare the little ones. Sit. Sit!"

As soon as Ann went back inside, Kim and Mary Beth resumed their bickering while I handed out candy and propaganda to a clump of elementary school students. Their parents stood anxiously at the end of the sidewalk, watching their little darlings every move. One reached into her kid's pumpkin and threw the Bible tract on the sidewalk before they walked on. It was a regularly occurring theme of the night. More parents than not threw the tracts on the sidewalk before continuing. Fortunately, Mary Beth was too busy arguing with Kim about eye shadow to notice and make one of us go down and pick it up.

There was a lull in the candy seekers. The air smelled like fresh fallen leaves mixed with hot wax and slowly roasting pumpkin from the jack o lantern, with just a hint of coolness in the air. If I wasn't trapped handing out cheap candy that I was under no circumstances allowed to eat, it would be a great night to be outside.

When Gaby and I were younger, we loved Halloween. We would make ridiculous costumes and walk for miles, more for the adventure of being out at night than for the candy. Then middle school happened. Gaby discovered that smoking weed with her new friends behind the defunct grocery store was more fun than being a pirate with me. She was always the captain, but in this case, I couldn't follow. I'd always be grateful to her for bringing my mom pot brownies to ease her suffering in her last months, though.

Determined not to wander too far down memory lane, I opened some of the Bible tracts. A couple warned of the dangers of Halloween (Chrissy's going to sacrifice your cat! Satan lurks in jack o lanterns!). More than a few were rants about the Islamicists and their Moon God. One warned about Satan handing out low-grade condoms to trick people into thinking they could have "safe sex". My opinion of the doctrine of Third Cavalry Reformed Baptist Church sank to new a low. No wonder parents were littering the sidewalk with these things.

A new group of kids wandered up to the porch. Spiderman, Cinderella, and two kids dressed up in what looked like shepherds from a Christmas play. One even clutched a stuffed sheep under his arm. Cinderella glared at me.

"Why's that Thanksgiving lady ugly?" she asked Mary Beth as she gestured in my general direction.

"Oh, honey. We mustn't judge by appearances," Mary Beth said in a sweet voice. "We have to go on what's in people's hearts."

I stuck my tongue out at Cinderella.

"I don't think she's pretty on the inside either!" Cinderella yelled.

"That's right, kid. I'm not," I answered.

Kim desperately tried to shush me as the concerned mom trooped up the sidewalk to see what all the commotion was about.

"Apologize. Right now!" the flustered mom ordered, her hand tight around Cinderella's upper arm.

"No! I don't like these ugly Thanksgiving ladies!"

The mom wrenched the girl's plastic pumpkin from her and poured the contents into the nearest paper sack full of Bible tracts, and then marched her away without another word. Spiderman and the shepherds followed in shocked silence.

Halfway down the walk, they turned back and shouted, "Thank you! Happy Halloween."

Cinderella burst into tears.

"Sorry!" the mom yelled up at us as she steered her gaggle toward a minivan parked a couple of houses down.

"Well, now you've done it," Mary Beth said. She snatched off her hat and fluffed her hair, then resettled it at a jaunty angle. "That's Mrs. Crompton."

"As in the wife of the pastor of Second Baptist?" Kim asked.

"Yeah. They hate us Third Cavalry Reformed people enough already since most of us were members there before the split," Mary Beth explained.

"If her kid always behaves like that, I can see why you left," I said.

Both Mary Beth and Kim were peering at Mrs. Crompton as she forced her screaming and kicking Cinderella to buckle her seat belt. The minivan door closed with a bang. I took the opportunity to smuggle a handful of Halloween candy into one of the pockets of the brown Puritan skirt.

The guy who was going to make Jordanian flatbread in his thrift store barbecue grill came by a while later, with two older elementary school students and a young teen girl in a headscarf. The younger kids, both boys, were dressed as Thor and Black Panther. Mary Beth put double Bible tracts into their trick or treat bags and tried to hand one to the teen girl as well. She waved it off with a faint smile.

"I'm just here to help with my brothers," she said.

I found one of the bigger pieces of candy and pressed it into her hand. She stuffed it into her jeans pocket and gave me a nod and a bigger smile.

"Thanks for your hospitality," the flatbread guy added. He gave me a long, searching look before they left.

He was probably wondering if I was his thrift store clerk or not, I thought. I hadn't even recognized me in the mirror with most of my hair stuffed under the white Puritan cap.

"How's it been going?" Ann asked as she appeared on the porch with a twenty-ounce tumbler in hand.

"Kelsey insulted the Crompton's little girl," Mary Beth said.

"What? How did she do that?"

"By looking ugly in front of her," Kim said. "I swear, that little girl is a nightmare."

I was stunned by this unexpected defense. Of course Kim and I had each other's backs but generally, we knew better than to directly intervene.

To my amazement, Ann Simmons' tense body posture relaxed. "Oh, that little girl is such a brat. Cindy Crompton just isn't Godly enough to raise her kids right. It's one of the reasons why we left, after all. Cindy Crompton is much too liberal for a pastor's wife." She gave me a pitying glance. "You pay her no mind, Kelsey."

She handed me the twenty-ounce tumbler full of her latest diet scheme for me. Apple cider vinegar in water, three times a day. I held my breath and chugged it just to get it over with.

"I told her that we mustn't judge by appearances," Mary Beth said, giving me her sweet, pitying smile. "Though I don't think Kelsey tried very hard to be pleasant tonight."

Ann frowned at me, considering.

"I'm trying to be an authentic Puritan here! I don't think Puritan women wore purple glitter eyeshadow! I'm trying to channel this Historical Godly Puritan woman. I thought that's what you wanted."

"Channel? Like a séance?" Ann's mouth fell open while Mary Beth squeaked in alarm, curling up like a pillbug in her Adirondack porch chair.

"No!" I took a deep breath. "Like in theater. They teach us in Theater class to try to really live the character. So I was trying to be my inner Puritan, see?"

"Okay, okay," Ann said, waving her hands palms out at me. "No need to get so upset. But no seances or weejee or whatever it is you Goth kids do for fun. We're doing the Lord's work in this house."

Ann glanced down at the bag of Bible tracts and then at the crumpled and trampled ones littering the sidewalk and street in front of the house. Her face fell. She dropped her hands to her sides in a rare gesture of defeat.

"You girls better go clean that up now. It's almost time for bed!"