The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(22)

“Sí, Mamá.”

“Have fun, both of you.”

Brandon led his bouncing, dancing sister across the street and two houses down to her best friend Lissi’s, where he could see two other princess ballerina turtle superheroes waiting impatiently on the porch. Lissi had found a lavender tutu and tiara to go with Donatello’s purple mask, and Amanda had even found a sort of pale orange for Michelangelo. Unfortunately, Stanzi—their Leonardo—was home with chicken pox.

“Brandon fixed my tutu,” Faith announced as she hopped up onto the porch. “He can fix yours, too, if you need him to.”

Immediately, two sets of eyes turned pleading looks on him.

Lissi’s mamá laughed at him. “You have enough pins?”

He turned up the hem of his shirt to show her the rows of safety pins he’d put there half an hour before, which made her laugh again. As he fixed Lissi’s and Amanda’s skirts in place, he listened to the girls plot out their path like seasoned military strategists. “Listas?” he asked when he was done.

“Listas!” they chimed in response.

He led them over to the next house so they could begin. This one didn’t have a porch, so he waited about halfway down the front walk and watched them skip the rest of the way to the door to ring the bell. “Trick or treat, Mrs. Záfron!” they chorused.

“Oh, goodness, don’t you all look very brave,” the woman greeted them with a grin. “Here we are, then, and Faith, take a couple of pieces for your brother. He’s going to need his energy, you know, chasing around superheroes all night.”

“Gracias!”

When Faith handed him the candy meant for him, he slipped it into the plush Crown Royal bag his dad gave him for his pogs and slammers. Mamá had a rule that no candy was allowed to be eaten before inspection. Mostly, he thought, it was so she would know how much they had and could tell if they’d been sneaking any extras. He led the girls over to the next house.

“Trick or treat, Mr. Davies!”

“Trick or treat, Mr. Silvera!”

“Trick or treat, Mrs. Chapel!”

They’d worked through most of the neighborhood when Bran’s watch gave them their first warning. “You have forty-five minutes left,” he told them. “We can do another street, maybe two, but then we have to head back.”

“Can we head back now?” asked Faith.

“You don’t have to, Faith. You have almost an hour left before Mamá said we needed to be home.”

“I know, but can we go back now?”

He looked at Lissi and Amanda, who both nodded energetically. “Ay, vámonos,” he agreed with a shrug.

But they didn’t go to the Eddison house or back to Lissi’s or Amanda’s.

They went to Stanzi’s and rang the bell. Her mamá opened the door and let them in with a broad smile. “Shh,” she whispered. “The sound carries up the stairs. Hola, Brandon.” She kissed him on the cheek and closed the door behind them.

“What’s going on?” he asked in a whisper.

“The girls had an idea.”

In his experience, “the girls had an idea” was not a sentence to inspire much confidence.

The girls walked into the living room, waving at Stanzi’s papá. He sat on the floor counting out paper bowls. He didn’t speak, because he had the kind of voice that carried even in a whisper, but he smiled and held his hands out wide over the bowls. The girls knelt near him, unable to sit with the shells on, and emptied their pillowcases into giant mounds of candy in front of them.

Brandon watched as they sorted through their candy, picking out Stanzi’s favorites and splitting them across the bowls. Her absolute favorite, he knew, was Sixlets, and Faith and Amanda both pushed all of theirs forward. Lissi sighed—Sixlets were her favorite too—but followed suit.

Faith separated out a little over half of Lissi’s and returned them to her. “Everyone’s happy or no one’s happy,” she said as firmly as a whisper could manage.

Lissi beamed at her and pushed forward all of her bite-size Snickers.

Brandon accepted the bowl of candy Faith gave him a few minutes later and let her push him through the downstairs to the kitchen. It was nearly ten minutes before he saw them again, and this time they had their Leonardo with them, her blue mask hiding a stripe of red chicken pox on her face. Her eyes, he saw, were damp with tears, but she was smiling so broadly her cheeks must be hurting.

“Trick or treat, Brandon!” Stanzi said breathlessly.

He looked down into the bowl. “You know, I do seem to have some treats, but they’re only for princess ballerina Ninja Turtles.”

“I’m a princess ballerina Ninja Turtle!”

He tapped a finger against her blue tiara, watching her tutu bounce in place around her with her excited fidgeting. “And so you are. Here we go.” He emptied the bowl into her pillowcase, hearing the other girls giggle behind the archway into the hall. “And hold on, I think . . . I just might . . .” He opened his Crown Royal bag and rooted through it. He didn’t have anywhere near what the girls did—that wasn’t the point of his going out with them—but he had enough that he had to poke through it. “Here we are.”

Her eyes were huge behind her mask as he pulled out the three packages of Sixlets he’d been given through the night. “Really?”