“Sorry, kid,” said Mom as she passed a green can to Jasper and set the cranberry water by my pumpkin. Then she leaned over to look at our pumpkins, frowned, and added, “Wow, these jack-o’-lanterns are going to be quite . . . interesting.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning back to examine my own pumpkin, on which I’d scribbled in black marker the outline of where I was about to start cutting. Three triangles and a toothy grin, just like every other year. “His name is Shady McPumpkinhead,” I said.

“Of course it is,” said Mom. “Of the Tennessee McPumpkinheads, yes?”

I glanced over at Jasper’s pumpkin, which was already finished. I had no idea what it was supposed to be. “Where’s his nose?” I asked, tilting my head sideways for a different angle. “And . . . the rest of his face?”

Jasper tilted her head too. “What makes you assume it’s a boy pumpkin?” she asked.

I shrugged. “The patriarchy, probably.”

Jasper laughed. “Look, I refuse to be boxed in by your conventional holiday customs,” she said. “My jack-o’-lantern is an abstract expression of autumn.”

“A protest pumpkin, eh?” said Mom.

Jasper nodded. “Why not?”

“No reason,” said Mom, turning. “You rage against the machine all you want. I’m going inside to start dinner. We’re having garlic chicken.”

The minute she was gone, Jasper grinned and whispered at me, “Garlic chicken with extra garlic!”

“Don’t say I never warned you!”

“Truth!” said Jasper, cracking open her fizzy water.

I picked up my knife and stared at my pumpkin, trying to decide where to start cutting. “I can’t wait for you to see Halloween in Ormewood,” I said. “Trick-or-treating on Woodland is like nothing you’ve ever experienced. It’s almost a festival. They block the street off and literally thousands of kids show up.”

“Literally thousands?”

“No, I really mean it. Literally literally. Like, actually thousands. Andy, around the corner, keeps track each year of how much candy he gives out. Last year he ran out after twelve hundred pieces.”

“You don’t say . . . ,” said Jasper. Then she seemed to drift off a little, like she was thinking about something.

“I do say,” I insisted, and shoved the knife into Shady McPumpkinhead’s face, chopped out an eye with three quick movements.

Then Jasper cleared her throat and said, “Hey . . . Leah?”

I looked up. “Yeah?”

“Well,” she said. “It’s just . . . I was thinking that maybe I could . . . invite my sister to come over, bring her kids to trick-or-treat. What do you think?”

“Oh!” I said, laying down my knife. “That . . . would be awesome. I bet Dad would make some of his special apple cider soda, and—”