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It was that time of year, the end of summer. The leaves were beginning to change colour. The air was beginning to cool. The temperature was doing that weird thing where you needed a sweater in the morning and shorts in the afternoon. Yes, fall would soon be upon little Ingo and Emmet.
Which meant it was almost a very important day.
“Emmet,” Ingo said, turning to face his brother across the room.
“I am Emmet,” Emmet said from where he was playing with Tynamo on his bed.
Ingo tapped his pointing stick against the white board they had convinced their parents to buy them last time they were in town. “We need to start planning.”
Emmet squinted at the board. “Planning what? You wrote your title too small again.”
“No I didn’t,” Ingo huffed, crossing his arms, “Maybe you need glasses.”
Emmet got off his bed and walked over, sitting on the ground in front of Ingo. “No I don’t. We just went to the eye doctor. I was perfect.”
Ingo erased the title and rewrote it, bigger this time. “We need to figure out our Halloween costume.”
“Can’t we go as a train again?” Emmet asked with a head tilt.
“We’ve been a train the last two years.”
“It’s a good costume.”
“It is,” Ingo agreed as he wrote it down. “But it is getting predictable. I will write it down, but it’s a last resort.”
Emmet frowned and mumbled, “But I like the train.”
Ingo was tired of standing. He grabbed the whiteboard and moved it to lay on the ground so he could sit with Emmet. “And I like candy. We need costumes that will get us the most candy!”
Emmet thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yup. Candy is more important right now.”
“First question!” Ingo scurried over to grab the pointer he had left behind, then scurried back. He tapped the first section. “Do we have one costume, like the train, or two costumes?”
“One costume is fun,” Emmet said grabbing a marker.
“But two means we can get to houses faster,” Ingo countered. “We were kinda slow in the train.”
“True.” Emmet drew two stick figures, one smiling and one frowning, at the bottom of the board. “Would our costumes go together if we did two?”
Ingo pointed at his second point. “That was the next question. I think it would be good. People love cute twins.”
“We can be cute,” Emmet said, “Dad is always saying not to be cute with him.”
“Exactly. So, two matching costumes?”
Emmet nodded. Ingo circled the words two costumes and matching in their respective questions.
“That brings us to… The Final Question!” Ingo underlined his title. “What are we going to be for Halloween?”
“It needs to be fun,” Emmet said, writing out the word.
“And exciting!” Ingo added, writing it next to what Emmet had written.
“And verrrry cool.”
“And sick!”
Emmet gave Ingo a confused look. “Sick? We can’t be sick. We can’t go trick or treating sick.”
“No, not like bad sick,” Ingo said. “Good sick. I heard Ma say it before. She said that a motorcycle was sick and I asked her if it was okay and she said that it was and that sick also meant that something was cool and good.”
Emmet scrunched his nose. “That’s confusing.”
“That’s what Ma said it meant. Complain to her.” Ingo shook his head and tapped the board with his pointer. “We are getting derailed. We need costume ideas.”
Emmet hummed in thought as he drew a little candle on the frowning stick figure’s head. “Peanut butter and jelly,” he eventually suggested.
“Salt and pepper,” Ingo said, writing both suggestions down.
“Ketchup and mustard.”
“Chocolate and vanilla ice cream.”
“We should think of something other than food,” Emmet said, moving on to draw a little fish next to the smiling stick figure. “I am getting hungry.”
“Hmm... Plusle and Minun?”
Emmet’s free hand slapped Ingo’s arm. “Oh! Write that down. Write that down!”
Ingo did as he asked, “What other Pokemon pairs are there?”
“Volbeat and Illumise.”
“You and your bugs,” Ingo teased. “Reshiram and Zekrom?”
“Karrablast and Shelmet,” Emmet countered, sticking with his bugs.
“Umbreon and Espeon?”
They came up with a few more costume ideas until they were left with a pretty sizable list. They then spent the next thirty minutes arguing over which pairs to take off and which ones would stay. Eventually, they were down to salt and pepper and Karrablast and Shelmet.
“But salt and pepper match our colours!” Ingo said.
“I don’t wanna be a seasoning,” Emmet retorted. “Karrablast and Shelmet are cooler.”
“I don’t wanna be a bug!” Ingo whined.
Just then, Litwick crawled over and tapped her nubs on Ingo’s leg. Knowing what she wanted, Ingo scooped her up and placed her on his head. It was her favourite spot, even if she needed help up.
Meanwhile, Tynamo had managed to wiggle his was under Emmet’s shirt. He swam around, occasionally causing the shirt to bump out as he ran into it. He gave out small shocks that made Emmet giggle every time he did.
“Wait!” Ingo shouted, “We have forgotten something!”
“What?”
“We have more cars on our train now!” Ingo pointed up at Litwick. “Litwick and Tynamo can help with our costumes!”
Emmet’s eyes widened. “You’re right!”
“We can be a Chandelure and an Eelektross!” Ingo said, jumping to his feet. “What do you think, Litwick?”
Litwick gave an excited coo.
Emmet scrambled to his feet. “How are we going to get the costumes?”
“We can make them!” Ingo said, “Like how we made the train costume with Ma and Dad!”
“Won’t that be hard?”
Ingo dropped back to the ground and started erasing everything except for Emmet’s doodles. “We can do it! We are a two-car train!” he said, drawing two larger stick figures and writing Chandelure and Eelektross above them. “And we have Ma and Dad and the internet and the library.”
Emmet sat back down next to Ingo. Tynamo poked his head out from Emmet’s shirt collar. “What do you think, Tynamo?”
Tynamo buzzed, making Emmet’s hair stand on end.
“Okay!” Emmet laughed. “Let’s do it.”