HAUNTED HEIST
SO THAT SUCKS
I was ready to do this. I, Jacob and McKayla would build the most awesome haunted house ever. We would spook the heck out of everybody on Asphalt Street. We would be revered in the history of Asphalt Street as the spookiest haunted house in town. Unfortunately, I had to share this glory with the Mad and Bad boys.
“Dad, please! We will not default this time, promise.”
“Hey, you’re not to be trusted. You did of course lose my 300 bucks, and I don’t trust you with money ever since.”
“DAD! I’m just asking for 50. That is just one-fifth of what I asked.”
“Another thing I don’t trust you with - maths.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll do something.”
“Just don’t shoplift like I did when I was fourteen! Juvy makes school look like heaven!”
“Dad, you went to juvy?”
“Uh, don’t bother me, now.”
With a face dropped low, I went to my friends. Only they could think of a solution. Our attempts had failed to materialize since we started elementary school. And, cheesy romantic comedies have taught that Halloween is totally banned when you turn 14 — sounds odd, but we trust it. So for the last time we’re not fourteen on a Halloween, I wanted to make it bigger and better than ever.
McKayla had become, as she were, Madam Curie.
“Madame Sklodowska! I told you before,” she said in a harsh tone.
That was yet, a splendid dress. She looked so French. And so Polish. And so much an irradiated scientist in the late nineteenth century. What I mean to say is, she did look a lot like Marie Curie.
So, this is my plan — I said before proceeding to tell them about my schemes of the most haunted haunted-house ever.
STEALING IS A BAD OMEN
There, see those Mad & Bad boys. Those are Brad and Fred, those two guys wearing orange jumpsuits. They look terrible by the way. They have created a two-storey haunted house. What we have to do is sneak in there and grab some spooky stuff.
“Like what?” McKayla said.
“Like, you’ve got jack-o-lanterns, you’ve got your skeleton suits and you’ve also got some candy. Just in case.”
“I know, you’re the weird guy who likes Twizzlers.”
“Initiate Operation Haunted Heist.”
So, after escaping so many groups of little kids who’d budge us for candy (and most of them wanted Snickers, for some reason), we were finally in front of their home. That was their home. Their rich dad basically danced to their tune, so they made awesome things. And their ideas were suspiciously as good and the same as ours. The only difference is - they had the means and the motives - the Ms and Ms, however, we just had the motives. We’d get the means and we’d head out to our basement and build the contraption ourselves.
So, for that to happen, Jacob had to do his usual pranks and distract them. Then, we’d go behind the house and enter from the backdoor. McKayla, with her tools, would break the locks. When we got in, we would take the employees’ route and then slide into the storeroom. There, we’d grab two spooky costumes and take this shovel with us, which we’d then fill with all the spooky stuff they had. Then, we’d pretend that we had a ticket and travel through the haunted house, before sneaking out to Jacob, going to our house (which luckily was just the house beside the opposite of their house) and we’d build it while McKayla would keep guard. We’d do this again and again until it was ready. No need for the applause incoming, I knew this was the perfect battle strategy, and if we’d execute it, we’d make history, one heist by heist. There was, however, a tradition on Asphalt Street — which we all held sacrilegious. Haunted houses close at 12 midnight and all the things have to go out. That is why you never find young kids on the road after midnight, it is a spooky hour. But, we did not want to make the spookiest haunted roadshow — no, we wanted to make the spookiest haunted house. This plan failed though.
So, as planned, Jacob pulled a really funny prank. He’d go and talk to them as a police-guy. A cop. Now, he planned to dress as Dr. Seuss, but he had to switch last minute for a cop costume, and that was a bit weird, considering he gets in trouble with the police, like, everyday. And he had some disguises. So, all things considered, Jack did a pretty good job of keeping the two teens in hand. The real problem — McKayla. Now, in every friend group, you have a trio. You have Harry, Ron and Hermione. I was the Harry to be the chosen one, we had our prankster in Jacob, but McKayla wasn’t as bold as Hermione. She was a bit too prone to being a bit too scared. A bit too much.
“I have reservations about this pulling a heist thing,” she said.
“Oh, do you want to make history or not?”
“Well, I guess. Okay, fine.”
That showed just really how reluctant she was. She wasn’t the girl to sabotage things, however, she would not be putting a hundred percent, that was sure. And, she was in a phase, as well. A sort of obsessive phase.
But, after a few heists, we knew we had a security discrepancy. A serious security discrepancy. You know, our beloved security guard, McKayla, was too obsessed with seeing what she branded as “cutest boy in the street” and spotting him, and she ignored Fred and Brad’s goons, who went outside the basement. You see, we’d locked the basement, but there was a stairway that took you there that we didn’t lock. This was for McKayla to come in and tell us the whereabouts. However, she ignored that. The boys’ goons didn’t. Now, the boys would come and pick stuff up outside. See, we would take the things we did want to use inside every heist, and drop the rest outside.
That was our fatal flaw.
We noticed things disappearing, and I was scared. I, a most daring boy, believed that a ghost had infiltrated the downside. Years ago, my elder sister had told me the Legend of the Boy-Ghost of Asphalt street. The dastardly creature would not kill you or cause you harm, but it was kleptomaniac. It liked to rob people and an increased number of burglaries during the holiday season had validated the people into thinking that ghosts would steal stuff every Halloween. And, editors of papers, taking advantage, wrote about more robberies to increase reading stats. It created this fearful environment and everybody thought everybody was a ghost who wanted to steal stuff.
I was scared too. I was aware that we were stealing. Not that they were stealing.
And they didn’t either. I mean, the goons did know that they were stealing this stuff, but they didn’t know it was not our stuff, but stuff that we’d stolen from them. This created a vicious cycle. We both grew scared and scared until the other guys confessed, and that was when we understood the downsides of thievery, apart from cops hating you and people also hating you.
Well, basically, it was around 10:30 I guess when they took a bunch of stuff and one of them said that he knew a shortcut. They could climb through a little crack and then sneak out over the fence out of our lawn. However, they ended up inside our basement and they did try to run, but they got their feet stuck on glue. They were caught. They fessed up that the boys were jealous of our haunted house being so good and they wanted to get some stuff and then we confessed.
After all this, we somehow put together a really good haunted house and had decent traffic before midnight, when we enjoyed the road show. I even got a soda and shared it with Brad, who is actually a cool guy and we joined our DnD groups. That taught me something - to not judge books by their cover, and stealing is bad.
McKayla was clung on to her seat, staring as she sweat as the “cutest boy” passed by. There was no such boy ever born or seen through cameras in the street, and McKayla had engaged us in another mystery, but I guess, that is a story for another time.
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