Bree gets two bottles on the house for her badassery with the pumpkins. Trace makes the story huge, larger than life, while Bree bites back a smile and shakes her head. We’re notorious, trumping the girlfriends and their bench; everybody can get behind bashing the Perfects on Prefect Street.

Kincaid is here, doing his pendulum thing on the half-pipe, hair and baggy jeans and wallet chain rising and slapping like sailcloth. He slows to listen to our story, then hops off his board, waiting until the rest of the crowd has bought their demons to get one for himself.

Kincaid looks at Bree. “You stole pumpkins?” Sheer delight sounds so cornball, but his voice is full of it. Bree reddens and glances down. “Can I see?”

Trace opens his car door, showing him the backseat. When Kincaid straightens up from the cab, he’s wiping his mouth on his hand, post−Fireball nip. “How the hell did you carry all those?”

Bree shrugs. “Wasn’t that hard.” At least this time she lets her expression warm a little, like a smile could happen. I don’t get it; when Kincaid’s around, my insides throw a holiday, big-city Chinatown-style, all swirling colors and lights and firecrackers. I can’t even hide it. At this point, her crush must be nearly dead inside that killing jar, twitching. Going dark.

I slap my pile of coins into Trace’s hand. “One, please.”

He gives a mock-solemn shake of his head. “Weak, Clarabelle. So weak.” I feel like an ass, but at least the focus has shifted my way instead of hovering between Bree and Kincaid, who’s probably wondering why the Pumpkin Thief hates him so much.

I glance at the street, then crack the seal on my bottle, hoping no one will be able to tell that I’ve only ever tried sips of my parents’ beer and wine before. I’ve overheard so much party bragging at the schools I’ve gone to—who got wasted, who got laid, whose parents don’t have the slightest clue—that it feels like about damn time I make a story of my own. The first swallow leaves a trail of fire down my throat, a taste like Red Hots and rubbing alcohol. I wince, but nobody’s looking—the boys are unloading the pumpkins, lining them up on the car roof according to size.

Trace takes out his folding clip knife, opens the serrated blade. “This sucker’s mine.” Thok, drives it up to the hilt in the biggest pumpkin, splattering juice.

They’re hack-and-slash jobs, the five jack-o’-lanterns staring back at us. Eight of us went into the trees to carve, with only two knives between us—Trace’s and Moon’s—so a lot was done by hand, cringing as we tossed away slimy, stringy guts, clearing gristle and seeds from eye sockets and gap-toothed grins until they leer or wink or make O’s of surprise.