Silly Lily
by Michael Barrett
Brandon had just begun to settle in for the evening, believing all of the trick-or-treaters had come and gone. He sat down on the couch, ready to immerse himself in the TGIF lineup, when he heard a knock at the door. With a sigh, Brandon muted the TV and slipped the floppy rubber Bill Clinton mask back over his face.
Through the tiny slits in the mask, he saw the black leotard first. Brandon extended his arm, out of habit, to give the girl a Kit Kat Bar before he realized she wasn’t carrying a bag. He stepped back to get a better look at the girl on his porch. Over her leotard she wore a flannel shirt and blue jeans.
“Is Brandon home?” she asked.
Brandon’s head tilted curiously, causing the mask to bounce and slide around. Now, all he could make out were a familiar sprinkling of freckles on the girl’s soft cheeks.
“Lily?” The distinctive crack in his voice was muffled by the rubber barrier. He ripped the mask off his head and tried to throw it back into the house. Instead, it rebounded off the top of the doorway and landed in his candy bowl. By some miracle, he maintained a firm grasp on the bowl. After taking a second to breathe, he simply asked, “Care for a sweet?”
Lily scanned the contents of the bowl before shaking her head. “I’m looking for my brother. I thought you two might be hanging out tonight, so I figured I’d start here. It seemed more pleasant than any of the other options.”
Brandon only had a vague understanding of what she meant. “No, I haven’t seen him. I’ve just been here all night.”
“Oh.” Lily’s shoulders drooped in disappointment.
“Is he lost or something?”
“Um, I don’t know. Not really, I guess. It’s just that his curfew is nine o’clock and Mom was worried about him. Seth has never been out late like this before.” Lily folded her arms and surveyed the vicinity to make sure her brother wasn’t passing by on his way home. “Well, I suppose it’s best that you weren’t out with those idiots. Thanks, anyway. I guess I’ll see you on Monday.”
“You know,” Brandon blurted out, “I could help you find him. If you’d like.”
Just as she had done with his candy offer, Lily considered it before turning him down. “That’s OK. You don’t really know the town all that well yet.”
“It couldn’t hurt to have a second set of eyes.” Brandon couldn’t believe how assertive he sounded. Or at least, he hoped he wasn’t coming off too desperate.
Brandon waited patiently while Lily studied him, apparently trying to gauge his intentions. “You really want to help me?”
Brandon nodded. A lot. Lily nudged her head to the side, as if to say, “Well, come on then.”
Brandon tossed the candy bowl and mask onto the couch, grabbed his Adidas windbreaker off the coat rack, and jumped off the porch as he followed Lily down the street.
Several straggling trick-or-treaters were still out, totaling up their evening loot. Their vast differences in age range caught Brandon off guard all evening. Where he came from, trick-or-treating was only for the kiddies. The unwritten law of the land permitted anyone who was 9 or younger to take part in the festivities. Double digits had doors slammed in their faces and went home with empty bags. If seventh graders, like Brandon, were far too old to participate, he couldn’t imagine what some of his former neighbors would have thought of these characters. Brandon swore he had one guy come to his doorstep sporting a legitimate beard and a receding hairline.
It might have been fun to go trick-or-treating, Brandon thought. Granted, it wouldn’t have been much fun by himself. So far, the only people he’d really spoken to were the Carlyle twins, Seth and Lily, and given the way their day had gone, he wasn’t really sure what all that amounted to.
After passing three blocks without either one saying a word, Brandon thought it would be appropriate to offer up some explanation to Lily. “Hey, sorry about what happened earlier. I had no idea that those guys…”
“Don’t mention it,” Lily interrupted. “No, really. Don’t. I know you had nothing to do with it. You couldn’t have. I mean, you’ve been here, what, two days?”
“Three.”
“Whatever. Just don’t worry about it and definitely don’t bring it up again.” She started muttering quietly to herself. “Stupid Devin … thinks he’s so hardcore … and Natalie … I’ll show that ho … bringing my brother into their crap …”
As her voice trailed off, Brandon attempted to change the subject. “So, were you a dancer for Halloween?”
Lily responded with a confused glance, before realizing she was still wearing her leotard. “No, I’m just a dancer. It calms me, so I practiced a little bit after school.” Lily stopped in her tracks long enough to scoff. “Well, speak of the tramp.” Scowling, she picked up the pace while crossing the street toward Natalie Johnson. Dressed as a Valley girl and crunching a Blow Pop between her teeth, Natalie didn’t see anyone coming toward her until after Lily knocked her on her ass with a single push.
“What the hell?” Natalie sputtered, standing herself up in someone’s front yard. She shook her head like a dog. “I swear to God, if I find even one grass stain on my skirt…”
“Where’s Seth?”
Given the look of shock on her face, Natalie wasn’t used to being interrupted. She pulled the remains of her Blow Pop from her mouth, covered in dripping, red saliva, and flicked it from point-blank range, sending it bouncing off Lily’s eyebrow and rolling down her cheek. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again, Lily.” She emphasized the name with a high-pitched, condescending tone.
Lily rubbed the sticky side of her face with her flannel sleeve, then repeated herself. “Where is Seth?”
Natalie breathed a small chuckle. “Oh, silly, silly Lilly. You worry too much. You know that? He’s fine.” Natalie turned her attention to Brandon. “And who is this? I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.”
They had been introduced, actually. About eight hours earlier in the cafeteria. Apparently, Brandon wasn’t worth remembering.
“You know,” Natalie continued, pointing a finger in Lily’s direction, “you could do a lot better than this one.” She covered the side of her mouth, but still spoke loud enough for Lily to hear. “We think she has a crush on her own brother.”
Before Natalie could display her faux-disgusted face, Lily responded with a thunderous slap, the impact of which actually startled Brandon. He had no idea such tiny, delicate hands could morph into powerful weapons. The slap was oddly beautiful in its execution, unlike any he’d ever seen on TV, resembling graceful choreography more so than a vicious act. In contrast, the sickening crack of Natalie’s knees and elbows against the sidewalk below sent an icy shiver up Brandon’s spine.
Lily hovered over Natalie for a second, pulling her arm back to deliver a knockout blow.
“Lily,” Brandon said, taking a small step forward. He kept himself well out of the line of fire.
Lily hesitated and reconsidered her plan. Instead, she clenched a handful of Natalie’s precious locks. “Tell me where Seth is or you’ll have a hell of a time covering up this bald spot.” She tugged on Natalie’s hair a little harder.
“No! No! Don’t! No!” There was an involuntary squeak in Natalie’s voice that predicted she would start crying at any moment. “He’s in the woods! They’re still in the woods!”
“Who’s still in the woods?” Lily asked.
“Seth and Devin. A bunch of us were playing Blind Man’s Bluff. Those two were still out there when I left.”
Lily checked to see if Brandon caught that, but he only returned a look similar to that of a deer in the headlights. More specifically, a deer just inches away from a pair of headlights.
How the mighty had fallen. Natalie, whose bark was so ferocious, as it turned out, was no better than a muzzled dog -- incapable of biting. This time, Lily spoke softly, squishing Natalie’s cheeks with her delicate and dangerous dancer’s palms. “I don’t appreciate what you and your friends did to me this afternoon. I want you to keep this in mind the next time you or any of your buddies have any bright ideas. You got that?”
Natalie nodded as quickly as she could manage, given that her face was relatively stuck. “Good.” Lily let her prisoner’s head fall just hard enough so that it smacked off the concrete. Not enough to do any damage, but enough to let Natalie know that Lily wasn‘t going to take any more crap.
Brandon followed Lily as she walked away, while Natalie curled into a fetal position on the sidewalk. Despite the situation at hand, Lily had a difficult time hiding her smirking satisfaction. Brandon might have been more concerned, but he was distracted by the way Lily’s freckles blended together when she smiled. How freaking adorable, he thought.
She picked up the pace and began sprinting a few more blocks until they reached the edge of town, in what appeared to be a rundown and abandoned entertainment district. A rusted gate surrounded an unkempt lot of grass that must have once been a prominent cemetery. Brandon assumed that this section of town had seen its glory days come and go. The cemetery, which was no bigger than Brandon’s back yard, was divided in half by the dirt path on which he and Lily were walking. The path led straight back to a large area of trees that he concluded were “the woods” that they were looking for.
Once they were past the weeds and filthy tombstones, and their feet sank deep in the softer soil of the woods, Lily looked back for the first time to make sure Brandon was still with her. He imagined in the summer that these woods would be pitch black. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of trees that, once combined like nature’s own private Megazord, would form a dark roof over whoever entered here. But now, with all of the golden leaves lying on the ground, the skin of summer had been fully shed and was crumbling underneath their sneakers. The modest rays of the full moon guided their journey.
“You must really care about your brother to go to all this trouble for him,” Brandon said.
“I don’t have a crush on him,” Lily snapped.
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Oh,” Lily paused for a second. “Well, he isn’t always an ass. Sometimes, he’s still my best friend.”
A few yards into the woods, Brandon noticed a ditch just ahead. Lily, however, didn’t detect it until her foot began to slide down the steep bank. Brandon managed to reach out in time. Her clothes were covered in dirt, but at least she hadn’t tumbled six feet to the cold bottom.
“Great catch,” Lily said. Brandon only smiled.
They both heard muffled groans coming from the woods on the other side of the ditch. They carefully slid down one dirt wall and climbed up the other as fast as they could. In the moment it took them to do this, a second voice could be heard, as well.
“Shut up!” The second voice was more audible than the first.
“That sounds like Devin,” Lily whispered to Brandon as they crawled over the dirt barrier. Unlike Brandon, who took a second to wipe the dirt off himself, Lily wasted no time running straight for the voices.
When he had caught up with her, Lily had come to a startled halt. A few feet in front of her was a boy tied to a tree. He squirmed as much as he could, and his head, covered by a Jason Voorhees hockey mask, hung low. As he moved about, Brandon noticed a blindfold under the mask, which must have meant that he was the last person to be “it” during the game of Blind Man’s Bluff. Judging by the muffled noises, it was also safe to conclude that his mouth had been taped shut. Whoever had tied him to the tree must have added the hockey mask as a Halloween bonus.
“What did you do to him?” Lily asked, her hands covering her mouth. The sight of her defenseless brother nearly brought her to her knees.
The culprit stood a few feet away from the tree, with his spiked, bleached blonde hairdo shining in the moonlight. “I haven’t done anything to him,” Devin said. “It’s just a game, silly Lily. Why don’t you and your friend head back into town and get some more candy before trick-or-treating is over? I’ll have your brother home in no time.”
Seth’s muffled groans were quickly becoming muffled cries for help. Brandon noticed, now, that a thin trickle of blood dripped out of the mask’s nose holes.
“Leave him alone!” Lily’s voice wasn’t as intense as it was when dealing with Natalie. This time, she wasn’t in control of the altercation. She was merely pleading for her brother’s safety.
Devin grinned and stepped toward Lily. “If I let him go, who will keep me company out here? You? That doesn’t sound too bad to me. We could have some fun, just the two of us. Couldn’t we, silly, silly Lily?”
“Haven’t you bothered her enough for one day?” Brandon asked. When Devin finally noticed him and shot him a glance, a mix of emotions rushed through Brandon’s veins. On one hand, he was impressed with how quickly he had stood up for Lily. On the other hand, he wished he’d chosen more intimidating words. Preferably, some words he could back up.
Devin laughed and moved toward Brandon. “Who the hell are you?”
Again, Brandon thought, we’ve already been introduced. Keep up.
“Just stay out of my damn business,” Devin added.
He gave Brandon a solid, condescending shove, and then turned his attention back to Lily. He grazed his knuckle along her cheek and pushed several strands of hair behind her ear. Lily just stood there. Brandon thought she must have something up her sleeve, but she remained still, eyes focused on her toes. He realized that she wasn’t going to do anything about it. All she wanted was to return her brother home safe and sound, no matter what.
Without giving it a single thought, Brandon rushed toward Devin and returned the favor with a push that not only sent Devin crashing to the ground, but his body bounced through two complete rolls before he looked up. His teeth were clenched even tighter than his fists as he stomped back toward Brandon.
Brandon used his forearm to lightly guide Lily out of the line of fire and then started backing away. His conscience yelled at him, you’ve never been in a fight! What are you doing? YOU’VE NEVER BEEN IN A FIGHT!
With his subconscious in firm control, Brandon kept stepping backwards. Wanting to put an end to this, Devin charged at Brandon and swung his arm back. Brandon’s feet slipped, and he realized he was along the edge of the ditch. As Devin’s arm shot forward, Brandon crouched and dodged it. Devin realized where he was at just in time to catch himself. When he turned around, Brandon responded with one of the weakest punches in fight history. However, despite his initial disappointment, the punch did cause Devin to waver just enough that he lost his balance. A crack echoed out from the ditch, as one of his arms snapped in two.
“Holy shit!” Lily shouted a few yards back.
Through duct tape and a hockey mask, Seth asked in a muffled tone, “What happened?”
“Brandon just kicked Devin’s ass!” Lily ran over to Seth and untied him.
Brandon remained perfectly still, completely shocked by his actions. In the ditch, Devin squirmed and screamed in pain as he tried to climb up the other side with one good arm. Seth and Lily ran to Brandon’s side.
“Nice going,” Seth said as he wiped the blood from his nose. “Let’s leave him here.”
“Seth, go call for help,” Lily said. “We’ll wait with him.”
“What!? Why should I help him?”
“You got us into this mess.”
“But…” Seth gave up when Lily held up her handful of rope. He spat in the ditch, then jogged back into town.
Lily bounced with glee and threw her arms around Brandon. “That was amazing,” she said. And without even thinking about it, she gave Brandon a quick kiss on his lips.
As if he wasn’t already speechless enough, this sent Brandon’s mind into emotional overload. In a span of mere seconds, he had won his first fight and received his first kiss. Unfortunately, his heart sunk as he realized his one fatal mistake for the evening. I didn’t warn Mom I was going out. She’s going to be pissed!
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