handed her a flyer as she approached the coffee shop. She barely noticed she had it until it was torn out of her grip by a gust of wind. She watched it whirl away across the street, the image of a kid biting into an apple landing on the windshield of a parked car.
Finally she made it to the Diner, fourteen minutes and eleven seconds after Mouse’s call.
‘What happened to you?’ called Elliot. ‘Ever thought of getting a watch?’
‘Sorry, man,’ said Ruby, ‘I had a rough night, must have slept right through the alarm.’
‘Yeah, you look … not yourself,’ said Red. ‘What happened to your glasses? Did you sleep in them or something?’
‘Give her a break,’ said Del, patting Ruby on the back. ‘It doesn’t matter Rube, at least you’re here now. Have a waffle.’ Del passed her a plate and began sliding food onto it.
Ruby looked around. ‘Where’s Clancy?’
‘In the restroom,’ said Elliot.
‘So you wanna hear the plan?’ said Mouse.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for Clancy?’ said Ruby.
‘He heard it already,’ said Mouse, ‘we’ve been here nearly an hour. So you wanna know?’ She was clearly going to pop if she didn’t say it.
‘Sure,’ said Ruby, ‘tell me the plan.’
‘OK,’ said Mouse, ‘the idea is that we go as the Rigors of Mortis Square.’ Everyone waited for Ruby’s reaction.
The Rigors of Mortis Square had first appeared in a comic strip and then as books and finally as a TV show. It was a situation comedy about a bunch of people, or rather dead people: ghosts who lived in a strange apartment block named Mortis Square, situated in New York City. The Rigor family were the main focus of the show, but there were other characters too: Liv Inded for instance, who was always to be found rummaging in the trash, looking for bones, her cat constantly chided for running off with one of her fingers or occasionally hands. It was a very popular show and Ruby for one loved it.
‘But that would require pretty elaborate costumes,’ said Ruby. ‘Where we gonna rustle those up at this late hour?’
They looked at her like she’d dropped a marble or two.
‘My mom promised to get us all costumes from the film studio,’ said Red. Nothing was registering on Ruby’s face so Red continued, ‘It’s kind of a birthday present to me, don’t you remember Ruby, the other night when you guys were all over at my place?’
Ruby was kind of vague on this point; she really didn’t remember. Sure, she remembered dinner at Red’s place and she remembered Red’s mom being there, she even remembered catching the bus home, but beyond that, no. The problem was she just hadn’t been getting enough sleep and, as her mother was always telling her, teenagers need their sleep.
‘My mom said we could choose any six costumes on the lot – it’s a big deal because there’s gonna be a film crew there filming … you gotta remember that?’ said Red. ‘It was in the paper, the mayor putting on this big Halloween do?’
No, still nothing was coming back to her, but the way Red was looking at her made her feel uncomfortable. So she said, ‘Yeah, sure I do.’
‘What have I missed?’ asked Clancy, sliding back into the Diner seat.
‘Red was just telling me about the Halloween costumes.’
‘So what do you think?’
‘I would say sounds genius to me.’ And it did; she really meant it. ‘So who am I going as?’
‘We, that’s you and me,’ said Del, ‘will be going as Hedda Gabble.’ Hedda Gabble was the Rigors’ nanny.
Ruby looked at her with unease.
Del continued, ‘I will be wearing a floor-length fur-trimmed velvet coat which covers me from head to toe – literally speaking.’
‘So what will I be wearing exactly?’ asked Ruby.
‘You, my friend, will be going as my severed head.’
‘Will it hurt?’ said Ruby.
‘Funny,’ said Del. ‘You will be under the coat with your head sticking out at the side, sorta tucked under my arm.’
‘Sounds very uncomfortable,’ said Ruby.
‘It’s not so bad,’ said Del. ‘Erica Grey did it for years.’
‘So why don’t you be the severed head and I’ll tuck you under my arm?’ suggested Ruby.
‘I’d be delighted but you’re way too short to carry off the coat part of the costume. I’d have to practically bend double to tuck my head under your puny little arm.’
Del took a photograph out of her backpack – it was a TV still that showed the actress Erica Grey, her head tucked under the arm of who knew who. Her pretty face was made up to look very pale indeed, huge dark circles around vacant eyes, lips blood red and black hair piled elaborately in some kind of historical do.
‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about,’ said Del. ‘It’s you that gets the glory, I just get to stand about under a coat all night.’
‘So choose a different costume, why don’t you?’ suggested Ruby, biting into the waffles. ‘Boy, these are good.’
‘That would spoil the whole deal,’ said Red. ‘We are meant to be going as the Rigors and there are five principle characters.’
She waited for Ruby to click.
‘You and Del will be one person, so that works out well with the six of us,’ said Red, slowly.
‘What about the baby?’ asked Ruby.
‘We don’t have a baby, obviously,’ said Mouse.
‘But the baby is a big part of the comedy,’ argued Ruby.
‘Well, it’s too bad because we don’t have one,’ said Red. ‘But we can get a headless dog ’cause that can be Bug.’
‘Pardon?’ said Ruby.
‘No, not really,’ said Red. ‘What’s with you? There isn’t a headless dog in the show.’ That was true; the dog in the show was called Toadstool and he floated. That wasn’t going to be easy to pull off either.
‘Bug will be on skates,’ said Del.
‘Skates?’ said Mouse.
‘Maybe a skateboard,’ said Del.
‘But toadstool is a pug,’ said Ruby. ‘Bug is a husky.’
‘We have to make compromises,’ said Red.
‘Yeah,
