Family Halloween

“Trick or treat,” Justin said when Mrs. Schaetzle opened the door. His parents stood behind him.

The old German woman retreated to her foyer table. She brought out three Nestle bars and dropped them in Justin’s basket.

“One for the bumblebee,” she said, her Prussian accent thick and heavy, looking at Justin’s black and yellow costume, “and one each for the Spearmint Twins.”

Leah and Martin had rented a bicycle built for two during the day and had ridden up and down Market Street on it. It’d been quite the sensation, and the ride on Castro Street had been more of a procession than anything.

“Thank you, Mrs. Schaetzle,” Martin said. “Justin, what do we say to our neighbor?”

“Thanks, ma’am.”

They walked down Sanchez. Leah looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Schaetzle’s grey house. “Living across from her gives me the creeps, Martin. She can’t be less than ninety years old. How long before she goes, do you suppose? I’d love to get my hands on that house when it goes on the market.”

“Who knows? From what I heard, she was an old Nazi who fled Germany for South America in ’45 and then came up here in the early ‘60s. She probably worked as a guard in Auschwitz or somewhere.”

“Yes, I can see her standing over a suffering child with a whip, shouting orders to clean floors with toothbrushes. The sooner we get her house, the sooner we can do a complete makeover.”