It was the beginning of October and Jane was already thinking of six different possible costumes for herself. But the problem was, none of them stood out like her past costumes have: A Lost Boy, Invader Zim, her Physical Education Coach. Her list will go on forever.

            But this year she was drawing a blank; all her teachers were too boring to dress as. She had already been all her favorite comic book characters. She was desperate enough to make a trip to the closest Party City and Spirit of Halloween stores to scope out what was on the market. But she got nothing. No inspiration, no ideas, nothing.

            Her bedroom door slammed open. She looked up seeing the same person behind all the dents in her wall, her older brother Sam. Except it wasn’t Sam. Instead in being his normal jeans and t-shirt combo. He was in tight leather pants. If he made one wrong move they would probably tear, matched with one of their dad’s old Kansas shirts and a leather, studded jacket. He had traded out his normal Nikes for combat boots.

“Who are you and where’s my brother?” she asked in shock.

“Aw c’mon Jane, its National Be Punk For A Day day!” He smiled. “Now I need you to spray paint my hair black!” They both shared the same chestnut brown hair. Jane looked her brother up and down before pressing her hand to his forehead.

“Are you okay?” she finally asked him. He laughed his loud and throaty laugh.

“I’m fine,” he asked, his having its usual happy beat tone announced but then he quickly cleared his throat and repeated himself in a more monotone voice, “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. I knew you were a little wrong in the head but this, this proves my theory of you being crazy,” she laughed.

“You are no fun,” he teased while shaking his head. She rolled her eyes, but got up and followed him to the bathroom anyways, after spray painting his hair black, ruining two towels in the process, he began to fix his hair in the mirror.

“You take National Holidays way to seriously Sam,” Jane muttered. Sam knew every strange, silly, and uncommon National Holiday there was to know. He celebrated every single one of them as if they were big scale holidays.

“So?” He laughed, “Stop making me break character!”

“Me? That’s all you! You can’t keep a straight face to save your life!”

“You have no faith in me,” He shook his head, making black powder float out of his hair.

“I still don’t have a costume idea,” She mentioned.

“We’ll have to fix that now won’t we?” He smiled at his younger sister.

“Whatever, Sasquatch.” He rolled his eyes at her nickname for him. He was around six feet while Jane was barely reaching five feet three inches. But he threw her over his shoulder and walked to his car anyways. They drove to a thrift shop rather than a costume shop.

“Everything is on sale,” He defended when he saw the look Jane was sending her. She laughed loudly as they got out.

“Everything is always on sale!” She shook her head but followed him inside anyways. There were so many racks of clothing tightly packed together Jane thought if both her brother and she tried to walk between them they would knock them over. There were tables set up with differently labeled boxes pressed up against the wall.

Her brother looked at her before saying, “If you don’t find something here, you’re hopeless.”

As they went down the aisles she could see every type of Alice in Wonderland dress known to man. Too bad I was Alice last year, she thought to herself. Well, insane Alice, but Alice nonetheless. Her brother grabbed an old school Harley Quinn costume off one of the racks.

“I was Harley two years ago.” She rolled her eyes as she kept searching through the racks, seeing nothing catch her eye.

“You were Arkham Asylum Harley,” He corrected his younger sister.

“I was still Harley,” She mumbled.

“Would you rather be Poison Ivy?” He grumbled.

“You know, I would if she actually wore any clothes rather than an unbuttoned flannel and leaves!” She said

“Green would go good with your complexion!”

“Not funny, Mr. I was a vampire three years in a row,” She retorted.

“Hey! I was Dracula, then one of the vampires off that Vampire Diaries show then I was Vampire Joker,” He defended.

“You were a vampire in three different outfits.”

“Fair enough, but that’s not the point!” He said before pulling out a Ninja Turtle onesie out of one of the boxes, all it earned him was a shake of her head. He suggested she be a Disney character; she said no. When he brought up Peter Pan and Wendy, she said that would be weird. They searched virtually every rack there was to search. It was time to move onto the boxes.

“You’ve done it, you’ve looked through this whole damn store. Yet you still haven’t found a costume that even remotely yells hey, maybe I should wear that, or something close!” He snapped, exasperated with his younger sibling. From all sixteen of her Halloweens, she had never been this picky. It puzzled him why this year she was being so fussy.

“Well I just want a cool costume idea,” She protested with annoyance in her tone. 

Then it clicked in his mind, she has had her eyes set on a certain lacrosse player named Liam for the past couple weeks. You could virtually hear the ding of his mind putting the pieces together. His lips stretched into a smug smile. She looked at him then back at the rack, then quickly back at him.

“Are you trying to impress-”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“100%.”

“No you’re not.”

“Shut up!” She snapped at him.

“Oh,” he laughed, “you, my dear sister, are smitten aren’t you?!”

“Maybe,” She admitted while her pale cheeks burned a rosy color.

“Oh you got it bad,” He laughed. He led her over to a box that read Superheroes in big thick black letters. She shot her brother the most confusing look she probably ever has given him. Even more confusing then the first time he made her celebrate Lima Been Respect Day.

“What are you doing?” She asked him.

He simply smirked at his sister, “You are going to wear what you want and if he likes it, great, it he doesn’t too freaking bad.”

“Well, I have an idea,” She smiled shyly.

“I was thinking of being Batwoman, but no one knows who that is,” She muttered.

“I know,” he shrugged, earning him a bright smile from his sister. She ran to the other side of the store, getting random articles of clothing to create her costume.

A few weeks later the Halloween festival was in full swing at their high school. She left with her friends while her brother left with his. He left before she got the chance to see his costume. Which made her wonder what her brother dressed as.

They made their way to the school gym where the haunted house was. But Liam stood at the entrance selling tickets in his clearly homemade Prince Eric costume. But before she could get the chance to make her way over to the entrance she saw a very familiar boy dressed as a vampire walk over to her.

“You’re joking? Again!” She laughed.

“This year I’m a Punk Vampire,” He corrected.

“No, you’re just lazy,” She laughed.

“Fair enough,” He laughed along with her as they walked to the haunted house entrance. Once they were their Liam said quick nice costume comment. Before she got the chance to thank him Sam turned around.

“What?” Sam said.

“You’re a punk vampire right? That’s cool dude,” Liam laughed.

“Thanks man,” Sam laughed.

“Nice Batwoman costume by the way. It’s pre the new 52 reboot right?” Liam said.

“Yeah it actually is,” She said nervously.

“Who do you prefer? Barbara Gordon or Kate Kane?” he asked her.

“Kate Kane all the way,” She said.

“I like Barbara Gordon,” He laughed before handing her the ticket.

“She’s cool too I guess,” She said.

“We should meet up sometime and talk comics,” he said.

“For sure,” She nodded happily before she followed Sam to the end of the line.

“See, someone else knew who Batwoman was,” Sam teased her.

“Shut up, Sasquatch,” She laughed.