The Worst Fright I’ve Ever Had

“Anna, look at that!”

“Not now, Ricky.” My brother tugs at my vampiress cape, but I want to stay and talk with my friend, Virginia, who I’ve just run into.

The next second I turn around . . . and Ricky and Louise, my little brother and sister, are gone.

My heart pounds. “Ricky! Louise!” I look around the dark street, but all I see are decorated houses and groups of kids with glow sticks. No sign of six-year-old twins anywhere. “Where are you?!”

“I’ll help you look,” Virginia says, putting a hand on my arm. “Don’t panic, they’ve gotta be around here somewhere.”

I nod and take a deep breath. “Ricky! Louise!” Trick-or-treating forgotten, we begin walking up the street.

One house catches my eye. “Check that out!” Virginia looks and gasps. A veritable parade of ghouls and zombies, each life-size and very realistic, roams its way across the yard. Cobwebs festoon the porch, two large pumpkins, images of witches carved into their faces, guard the steps, and recordings of eerie cackles fill the air.

“Creepy.” I shiver. “Let’s go.”

We walk on, asking everyone we meet if they’ve seen the twins, but nobody has. Finally, I lose control and start to cry. “I can’t go home without Ricky and Louise!” I sob. “We’ve got to find them!”

Virginia pats my back, then straightens up. “I know where they are.”

“You do?” I ask, wiping my eyes.

“Remember Ricky asking you to look at something? It was the creepy house!”

We race back as fast as we can go.

It ends happily. Turns out the twins ran over there, knocked on the door, and received candy. Then, seeing that we had left looking for them, they made friends with the couple who owned the house and hung out on the porch with them until we came back. So, not only did we find them, but we met some of the neighbors.

And that is the worst fright I’ve ever had in my life. Appropriately, it happened on Halloween.