The next time I saw costumed characters on Ann Street, I happened to be one of them.

It was October, and apple cider was in season; Trent bought some fresh, at the Ann Arbor farmer’s market, and he and Pammy and I sat on the porch sipping. It was a warm Indian summer afternoon; I realized that Halloween would soon be upon us.

The year before I had been living in the South Quad dorms like a hermit—I suppose I felt all grown up as a college student, and had put aside childish things. In any case I hardly noticed Halloween had even happened at all. I vaguely recall seeing some pumpkin-and-skull decorations on the hallway bulletin boards and stuff—not to mention around campus and the town; and I knew some of my fellow students got way into dressing up and going to parties. But I remained a shut-in, barricaded in my dorm room, doing my math homework. “Which was especially dorky,” I confessed to Pammy and Trent, “since Halloween was on a Friday night, and there was no math class the next day to be studying for.”

“You won’t be able to miss Halloween this year,” said Pammy. “Not even if you lock yourself inside the house.” The Ann Street neighborhood, Pammy explained, was always known for having a big Trick-or-Treat tradition. “When I was editor of the student newspaper, we always ran a story on it every year.” Lots of grad students and faculty still flock to this neighborhood, she explained, to housing several blocks each way and on the streets running parallel to the north and south of Ann Street. “I imagine there will still be lots of young families with children, and for a couple hours in the evening at least, there will be a ton of little Trick-or-Treaters.”

I had seldom noticed a child on Ann Street, but Pammy reminded me that there was a nursery school and daycare center just a couple blocks west, and an elementary school and high school a block north of that, which I must have passed a hundred times. “Oh yeah, on the way to Fingerman’s,” I realized. Now that she mentioned it, I recalled a small playground in the lot next door to the Arbor Harbor Daycare and Nursery School, too. “The neighborhood must be infested with hidden children.”

“Stella’s already planning to send Simon to that daycare when he’s old enough,” said Trent.

It’s funny that when you’re in college, childhood seems eons behind you, until something like petting a dog or making a big deal about Halloween suddenly grips you with nostalgia.

I was totally into it.

“Halloween’s on a Saturday night this year,” I said. “We should give out candy. Ooh, and we’ve got to carve jack-o-lanterns! This old house will be perfect—we can decorate the porch with cobwebs and skeletons, and set up my stereo speakers outside and play corny haunted house music!” I almost leapt to my feet. “Trent, you can wear your—”

He cut me off before I could say, “—Megaton Man uniform.”

“I won’t be dressing up,” Trent said; then he smiled. “But I’ll help you carve pumpkins and give out candy, if you like.”

I was a little disappointed; but then, I had no idea how Trent could have filled out that big, bulky primary-colored costume with his skinny, Civilian frame. It would have taken every pillow in the house to stuff into Megaton Man’s pecs alone, and then some. I guess it was just as well.

But it got me to thinking about a costume for myself.

When I was a kid in Detroit, I usually dressed up as a witch, or a down-on-her-luck clown, or a zombie or something—all of which required lots of makeup help from Avie, who surpassed me in that department by the time I began to outgrow it. But I have a one-track mind, and I was feeling good about my slightly taller body, and the thought of one of those skin-tight Megahero uniforms appealed to me—frankly, it turned me on. About a week before Halloween, I was talking to Avie on the phone.

“I don’t know what to wear,” I said. “It’s been so long since I’ve dressed up…. It needs to be something quick and simple…sexy, but not demeaning.” I was hoping she could whip something up and deliver it to Ann Arbor.

“I get it,” she said. “You want to drive Trent wild with desire.”

“I do not,” I said. But I did want him to notice me.

Avie reminded me that her theater troupe had left that big trunk of costumes they had brought for the street fair in the basement, and Daddy had neglected to take it back home to her every time he worked on the rec room, which he’d done over several weekends in September. “There should be a nice purple leotard in there,” Avie reminded me, that one of her troupe had worn, “and some other stuff you can use to improvise.” She encouraged me to be creative; then she hung up.

I couldn’t remember what anybody in particular had worn at the street fair, but I rushed right down to the basement. Inside the unfinished stud walls Daddy had put up were the mattress and cots the troupe had brought along, still stacked in the corner. The trunk of costumes, masks, and props was still there, too, under a tarp. On it sat some two-by-fours and a rotary saw; Daddy had been using it as a work bench. After I cleared off all the equipment and sawdust and whatnot, I opened the lid. As I rummaged through the trunk, I was surprised at how all the articles of clothing seemed so alien and unfamiliar to me.

Most of the items, as I said before, seemed more Mardi Gras and Bauhaus than scary Halloween—hardly Megaheroic, as I now had in mind. But then I located the purple leotard body suit Avie had mentioned, and some magenta boots, gloves, and panties that contrasted nicely with it. There was also a small piece of material of the same magenta color—it had been torn from something and probably had served as an impromptu scarf or bandana. Too bad, I thought, that it wasn’t big enough to serve as a cape. Everything looked like it would fit, but they smelled kind of funny, so I threw them in the washer and waited.

At least I knew what kind of costume I was going to put together: my own Megahero uniform.

Stella’s parents had given her a sewing machine over the summer, which she had set up in the dining room. In her spare time—which Stella rarely had with school and all—she tried her hand at making some simple baby outfits for Simon. She was getting pretty good at it, although none of the booties and caps and whatnot had any particularly Megaheroic vibe.

Given Trent’s reaction to my suggestion that he wear his old Megaton Man uniform, and Stella’s oft-repeated vow of nothing but normalcy in her life, I was leery about broaching the subject of my Megahero-themed Halloween costume idea with either of them. One evening Stella was sewing away on a rag doll that had taken her forever, and she was very pleased to finally have completed it. I took the opportunity to ask her if she could cut a plain, round letter “C” from the piece of magenta fabric and sew it onto the torso of the purple leotard. Luckily, she was in the zone and was only too glad to help; she regarded it as a challenge.

Getting fabric to lie flat over stretchy material without bunching all up unattractively is harder than it looks—but in short order I had a spiffy Captain Clarissa suit. It would have looked even spiffier with a cape and brass buttons to attach to my collar bones, but you can’t have everything. And I wasn’t about to ask the former Megaton Man to loan me his for the occasion—although that would have been too cool.

Halloween Saturday was soon upon us, and Trent and I started decorating the porch around noon. We cobwebbed all the shrubs with cotton batting and set my stereo speakers out on each side of the porch. We carved jack-o-lanterns on newspapers on the picnic table out back—Trent’s turned out the best—and brought them out to the front porch. Meanwhile, in the living room, the Arbor State Abyssinian Wolves played Minnesota Minnetonkans on TV. Avie came out from Detroit before dinner to help us decorate—she put together a stuffed scarecrow from old clothes to lounge on the swing and brought some candles and brown-paper lunch bags to set around the sidewalk. Once we were done, we ordered Chinese takeout for dinner.

When it came time to dress up for the Trick-or-Treaters, Avie refused to wear any of the costumes from the trunk—she was now a minimalist, she said; she would be performing the role of back-up candy dispenser as herself. Trent also would appear in his usual Civilian attire: jeans, baseball jersey, and sneakers; he would not be reprising his role as the famous goggled Megahero—fear of typecasting, no doubt. Pammy of course had already slipped off to spend time with Matt.

That left Stella, who was the last person I expected to do what she did. When she saw I would be the only one dressing up, she got a funny look on her face, then disappeared upstairs.

A short time later, just as it was getting dark and Trick-or-Treat was about to start, Stella made a grand entrance down the stairs—in her blue body suit with the white “Q” on the torso. I had no idea she had brought along her Megahero uniform from New York, let alone kept it all this time.

“The See-Thru Girl,” said Avie, nodding, impressed. She whispered to me, “With the body she has now, I can at least imagine casting her in that role.”

“I won’t be turning naked with but a thought, however,” Stella announced. “This is for the kids.”

Avie was clearly disappointed. She’d only been hearing from me for nearly a year about how I actually lived in a house with former Megaheroes, and had yet to see a single shred of evidence. While Stella’s costume made a statement, a demonstration would have erased all doubt. “I guess we’ll have to settle for method acting,” whispered Avie dismissively.

Trent now had several reasons to be beside himself. Not only had he been dreading all afternoon another consciousness-raising lecture from my sister—which could still happen without warning; but now Stella looked so darned good—wearing the very outfit she had worn the night Simon was conceived.

And even thought Stella outclassed me by a mile, I held my own, if I do say so myself—I thought I looked rather spiffy in my purple leotard as Captain Clarissa.

All that was left to do was remove the top screen from the storm door so that we could dispense candy from inside and light the candles in the pumpkins and lunch bags. After we accomplished that, Stella and I were such showoffs we just sat on the porch steps with bowls of candy and waited for the crowd to arrive. I don’t know where all the Trick-or-Treaters came from, but by the time it was dark out, Ann Street had become a constant stream of miniature ghosts, goblins, witches, and skeleton people—accompanied by their academician parents. The See-Thru Girl and I did most of the candy dispensing while Avie watched Boris Karloff in Frankenstein on the black-and-white TV in the living room. Trent looked after Simon in his bassinet in the dining room and made popcorn on the stove; he kept us all supplied with candy and beverages on the porch. I think he was still a little leery of Avie, because he hung back at first; but they seemed to get along amiably as the night wore on. They took turns moving the needle back on the record on the stereo in the living room, so that we had constant haunted-house music outside on the porch.

One last, big group of costumed Trick-or-Treaters came through before the procession started to thin out; they clogged our view from the porch such that we couldn’t see the sidewalk. “What a great cat costume,” someone said in the back of the crowd, but I couldn’t see any cats; it must have been somebody short way in back of the group.

As the group dispersed, a tawny, furry figure wearing a red cape, brass buttons, and goggles clawed his way toward me and Stella on the porch. It was no kid in a costume; it was Kozmik Kat—only now he wore a full-body, primary-colored replica of Megaton Man’s costume—replete with yellow boots and gloves over his paws. He looked haggard and drawn.

“Koz, what are you doing here?” I asked. “And where did you get the suit?”

“I’ve always had it,” said Koz, catching his breath. “I never wear it, ‘cause you’ll notice they put an inappropriate ‘M’ on the torso, and some joker always wants to call me ‘Megaton Meow,’ which drives me nuts. Would it be too much trouble to have a ‘K,’ I ask you? Also, it gets a bit stuffy in the summer,” he said, wagging his bushy tail, which was still exposed. “But one never knows what the weather will be like this time of year in Michigan.”

Koz looked around anxiously.

“As to why I’ve come, I’m looking for Bing,” he said, with a tinge of desperation. “Is he here?”

“Yarn Man?” asked Stella. “Why would he be in Ann Arbor?”

“Because of little Clarissa here, for starters,” said Koz, thumbing at me. “All I’ve heard for half a year has been—well, it’s more than I wanted to know about her little romp with Bing. Believe it or not, human mating is not a topic of great interest to a feline.”

Stella gave me a funny look; she had known nothing about Bing staying overnight in my bedroom while she lay overnight in the hospital.

“Yarn Man has feelings for me?” I asked, sounding more eager than I had wanted. “It might have been nice if he had taken the time to drop me a note, or call, or something.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say he has feelings for you,” said Koz. “It’s more like a dirty old man incessantly bragging about a significantly younger amorous conquest.”

Talk about throwing cold water on someone.

Koz opened the screen door and let himself into the house. “The real issue is the friction on that ill-fated team of Youthful Mutants I’ve had to babysit,” he explained. “Farley Phloog, Rex Rigid, Bing Gloom”—the Original Golden Age Megaton Man, Liquid Man, and Yarn Man respectively—“they’re supposed to be the grownups, for cryin’ out loud; but they’ve been at each other’s throats for months. Bing—being thin-skinned in spite of his thick, woolen hide—left in a huff because Farley refused to take sides with him in some dispute with Rex. That was over a week ago, and nobody’s seen Yarn Man since.”

Kozmik Kat, all agitated, continued his march into the living room. Avie, already on edge from watching Karloff, and furthermore perturbed now that somebody was interrupting her scary movie, turned and glared. When she saw Koz, however, she said admiringly, “That is a great costume. Where did you…?”

“Thanks, kid,” Koz said to Avie. “Do you mind if I take a look around?” he said to me. “Just in case Yarn Man hasn’t cleverly disguised himself as an afghan or a crocheted pillow or something.”

“No, of course not,” I said to Koz. “Make yourself at home.”

I watched Avie’s expression change to utter horror as she processed what she was witnessing. “Oh, my God—he really is a talking cat!” she exclaimed. “Sissy—you’re talking to a cat!”

“And he’s talking back to me,” I said. “Yes, I know.”

Trent, who was in the dining room, ducked his head into the living room and frowned. “Kozmik Kat? What does he want?”

“Yarn Man is at-large,” I said. “Armed and dangerous.”

“You think this is funny,” said Koz. “The last time Bing went on a bender, he was gone for six weeks; he turned up on a rack in a second-hand clothing store as an Irish turtleneck sweater; we had to buy him back.”

Kozmik Kat proceeded to zip around the first floor of the house—up the stairs to the second floor, then back down to the basement—at a speed I had never from seen him before. He had only ever demonstrated the most languorous, laid-back behavior; this was a startling change.

I realized the cat really was concerned about the big lug.

Avie couldn’t get over it. “That’s Kozmik Kat,” she kept repeating. She looked at Trent and Stella with trepidation now, half-expecting them to break out into their Megapowered personas as well. “You really are a bunch of Megaheroes.”

“I told you, Avie,” I said.

Maybe in my Captain Clarissa outfit, she was afraid I’d turn into a Megahero too.

In a few seconds, Kozmik Kat reappeared. “I like the improvements you’re making to the place,” he said.

“Thanks to Daddy,” I said. “So, how did you get here, Koz? Did you ride the rails again?”

“Of course not,” Koz answered. “There was no time to waste—so, I used the Time Turntable.”

“The Time Turntable?!” said Stella. “On Ann Street?”

“Yeesh!” said Trent, with a horrified expression as if Preston Percy were coming at him with a syringe. “I’ve taken a few rides on that thing myself; it’s a bumpy ride.”

“I don’t care for it much either,” said Koz. “But like I say, this is an emergency. I’m worried about Yarn Man—I’m afraid Bing might do something drastic.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought the Time Turntable was only for time travel.”

“It can also hop across dimensions,” Trent explained, “as well as make short hops geographically—through space—without crossing dimensions or time.”

“I thought the double-meaning was that it saved time,” said Koz.

Kozmik Kat’s frenzy had started making me concerned for Bing’s well-being.

“My point is,” I broke in, “if it’s so important, why don’t you use the Time Turntable to go back in time—and stop Yarn Man from running off?”

“That contraption is too unpredictable,” said Koz. “After my stint in the Forbidden Future, I would never dream of using that crazy platter for anything but a quick trip from Megatropolis to Ann Arbor—in the same space-time continuum, thank you very much. I wouldn’t travel through time or across dimensions ever again if you gave me a million dollars—not even for Bing.”

“Where is the Time Turntable?” asked Stella. “You didn’t leave it out on the front yard for all the neighbors to see, did you?” She seemed suddenly conscious that all this Megaheroic stuff—fine for Halloween, maybe—was beginning to clash with her avowed desire for Civilian normalcy.

“It’s in the back yard,” said Koz. “Believe me, I don’t want to cause a ruckus in your sleepy college town any more than you do.”

Avie and I, curious, ran to the back of the house. Out through the kitchen window, we saw it: The Time Turntable, glowing, whirring silently in the dark, its spindle surrounded by concentric, pulsing circles of light that gently hummed in the middle of the lawn.

“It’s bigger than I pictured it,” I said. “About eight feet across, wouldn’t you say, Avie?”

“You really do live in a house with Megaton Man and the See-Thru Girl,” said Avie. “Or that’s the most convincing movie prop I’ve ever seen.”

“I think it’s the real thing,” I said. “Want to go jump on it with me and find out?”

“No thanks,” said Avie. She paused and looked at my costume. “There was a pair of big cat-framed glasses with sequins and feathers all over it down in the trunk; did you see them? They would have gone great with that outfit.”

“I saw them,” I said. “I didn’t like them.”

She looked me over again. “Maybe you’re right.”

Back at the front door, Kozmik Kat and Stella were dispensing what remained of the Halloween candy to the last straggling Trick-or-Treaters on Ann Street. Trent moved the pumpkins off the porch to let the candles burn themselves out at a safe distance away from the house.

Standing in the foyer, Kozmik Kat said to Stella, “Remember, if Bing shows up, you know where to reach me.” He turned to me. “He’ll be looking for a friend; just try to be nice to him. He’s likely to be in rough shape.”

We followed the cat down the hall and out the back door. From the patio, we watched as he jumped onto the Time Turntable; it began to spin and glow brighter.

“Where else are you going to look?” I shouted over the rising hum.

“Every juke joint from here back to Philadelphia,” said Koz. “Remember, treat Yarn Man with kid gloves!”

With a crackle of energy dots, Kozmik Kat disappeared. After he was gone, the Time Turntable itself slowly vanished from sight.

Trent and Stella had both seen that kind of thing many times before, but Avie and I thought it was way cool.

The plan had been for Avie to sleep on the sofa in the living room. But after Halloween, Karloff, and Kozmik Kat, she changed her mind and used Trent’s old sleeping bag to sleep on the floor in my room next to my bed. We got out some of our old comic books from the shopping bag and read them by flashlight way past midnight, just like we use to do when we were kids.

As we lay awake in the dark, I said, “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” said Avie. “I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s what I mean,” I said. “It’s silent.”

“What am I supposed to hear?” She thought I was trying to scare her.

But I was listening for any sounds coming from across the hall. There weren’t any. I was just a little bit sad that the See-Thru Girl and Megaton Man still weren’t back together, but I couldn’t explain that to Avie.

In theory, the next time Avie visited Ann Arbor she’d be able to sleep in the rec room in the basement. Daddy came out over the next couple of weekends, put up dry wall and wood paneling with insulation and a built-in electric heater, installed a drop ceiling with fluorescent lights, and even laid a hardwood floor over the basement concrete. We set up the mattress on a box spring, threw a quilted bed spread over it, tossed a ton of plush cushions on top of it, got a few pieces of cheap, second-hand furniture from the antique stores in town, sat a portable TV on a sideways orange crate, and—voilà! A cozy basement rec room. We used the trunk of costumes as a coffee table—Daddy didn’t forget it; now we wanted to keep it.

I knew Daddy was just soaking Preston at this point, but I didn’t care. When I got a lava lamp and some black-light Fearful Living posters and a stop sign and tin advertisement for Slack Jaw Chewing Tobacco to tack on the wall, he insisted that I save the receipts so he could pass them along to our friendly neighborhood secret agent for reimbursement.

But Avie never did sleep over in the rec room. Instead, it became my purgatory, and almost my complete academic undoing.