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Back The Mother Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (84)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. HALLOWEEN
  6. Seven Weeks Before Halloween
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. HALLOWEEN
  11. Six Weeks Before Halloween
  12. FOUR
  13. FIVE
  14. SIX
  15. HALLOWEEN
  16. Five Weeks Before Halloween
  17. SEVEN
  18. EIGHT
  19. HALLOWEEN
  20. NINE
  21. TEN
  22. HALLOWEEN
  23. ELEVEN
  24. TWELVE
  25. Twenty-Five Days Until Halloween
  26. THIRTEEN
  27. FOURTEEN
  28. HALLOWEEN
  29. FIFTEEN
  30. SIXTEEN
  31. SEVENTEEN
  32. EIGHTEEN
  33. NINETEEN
  34. TWENTY
  35. HALLOWEEN
  36. Eighteen Days Until Halloween
  37. TWENTY-ONE
  38. TWENTY-TWO
  39. HALLOWEEN
  40. TWENTY-THREE
  41. TWENTY-FOUR
  42. Eleven Days Until Halloween
  43. TWENTY-FIVE
  44. TWENTY-SIX
  45. Eight Days Until Halloween
  46. TWENTY-SEVEN
  47. TWENTY-EIGHT
  48. TWENTY-NINE
  49. HALLOWEEN
  50. THIRTY
  51. Four Days Until Halloween
  52. THIRTY-ONE
  53. HALLOWEEN
  54. THIRTY-TWO
  55. Two Days Until Halloween
  56. THIRTY-THREE
  57. The Night Before Halloween
  58. THIRTY-FOUR
  59. HALLOWEEN
  60. THIRTY-FIVE
  61. Halloween, Present Day
  62. THIRTY-SIX
  63. THIRTY-SEVEN
  64. HALLOWEEN
  65. THIRTY-EIGHT
  66. HALLOWEEN
  67. THIRTY-NINE
  68. HALLOWEEN
  69. FORTY
  70. HALLOWEEN
  71. FORTY-ONE
  72. FORTY-TWO
  73. FORTY-THREE
  74. FORTY-FOUR
  75. HALLOWEEN... NOW
  76. FORTY-FIVE
  77. Seven Months Later
  78. FORTY-SIX
  79. FORTY-SEVEN
  80. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  81. ALICE SWANSON’S
  82. Reader's Guide
  83. Questions for Discussion
  84. Booklist

“I didn’t want to miss it. This is a really good part,” Ellen said. Her hair was about as long as Lily’s, but with blue streaks running through it, and she was wearing a long cardigan sweater and a T-shirt that said in black block letters, I CHALLENGE AUTHORITY. She was a senior, on her way to valedictorian, Adam had mentioned when I’d wondered why a senior was hanging out with a freshman. Good role model, he’d pointed out. Clearly they had horror and ghosts in common.

“Mom hates this movie,” Lily said, sitting up and grinning. I’d noticed she’d painted her fingernails black.

“Why on earth?” Ellen asked. She pushed her large, round glasses back up on the bridge of her nose and stared at me, evoking a kind of confidence I wasn’t used to in teenage girls.

“I can’t stand the bee part, where they swarm all in his mouth,” I said.

“She’s allergic,” Lily added.

“But mostly that part where they find out the guy was coming in through the bathroom medicine cabinets,” I said, fake shivering. “Just creeps me out.”

“She makes us check them whenever we go to a hotel or anything,” Lily said, a little too gleefully. “Like someone’s going to be waiting there in the walls.”

“Lily!” I tossed a pillow at her to get her to stop. She shrieked and ducked. These days she wavered between kid and adult, one minute giggling over Adam’s impressions of Sesame Street characters and the next lecturing me about the importance of composting. I held my breath for the day she’d wake up and realize that I was not just her mother but a flawed human who, even at thirty-eight, had no idea what she was doing.

“Well, I think the movie has a lot of really interesting things to say about race and class and the way that myth and superstition can encourage prejudice and stereotyping,” Ellen said, punching at the remote so the movie resumed. “Plus it’s got an über-creepy urban legend.”

“And so do we,” Lily said to me. “Right here in the neighborhood. It’s so exciting.”

“All the best things,” I said, trying to avoid being pulled into a long conversation, but they were already absorbed again, forgetting me.