It had all started with a bet.

Briar had been sitting in the corner of the school playground whilst waiting for the morning bell and reading the choose your own adventure book that he had checked out of the big Destiny City library a couple of days back but up until now had not had the chance to read.

His part of the playground was okay - quiet - which was just the way he liked it, although not as great as his favourite reading spot in the park. It was starting to get a little too cold for the park however, was starting to get dark sooner too - to the point where his Mum was starting to make a fuss about wearing coats and stuff again.

Briar really, really wished that she wouldn't. After all it wasn't as if he was a kid... In fact he was going to be thirteen at the end of the month - October the 31st to be precise - aka Halloween. Then there was the fact that this was to be his last year at Knightside as this time next year he was going to be at High School and if he was old enough to be a nearly High Schooler then he was far too old to be fussed over.

Either way he had been sitting in the playground, with his book and immersing himself in the city of Kharé when he had been interrupted by the act of someone snatching away his book.

He'd been kind of irritated when he had looked up and found Thomas Logan grinning down at him since he'd been at a really, really good part, although Thomas hadn't been particularly bothered by the annoyed look he shot his way, most likely down to the fact that he was kind of a friend when he wasn't off being annoying.

At some point the two of them had ended talking about Halloween and their plans for it and Briar had mentioned his upcoming birthday and he had also mentioned that he was going trick-o-treating and that he was finally being allowed to go on his own.

He wasn't quite sure when it had all turned into a bet about who could get the most candy whilst dressed up in their Halloween finest - but given that the loser had to buy the winner cookies for a month - it was one that Briar definitely didn't intend to lose.

First up Briar knew that he had to find a costume and the costume had to be the bestest baddest costume he could think off. Well okay the second bestest baddest costume - because the bestest baddest costume would have been going into superhero mode as Oort.

Being Oort was for secret superhero stuff though - like looking for and fighting the monsters that most people didn't seem to know about and so whilst Briar knew that he would totally ace the bet as Oort, he had instead tried to hunt around for an actual Halloween costume.

There had been plenty on sale in the shops, but Briar had wanted just the right one - after all he was going for badass - even if it was the second bestest.

He had rejected dressing up as a vampire because the costumes looked fussy - way, way fussy and whilst the cape was kind of neat the frilly tie thing that so many of them had was a definite no-no.

Dressing up as a ninja had seemed promising because ninjas were stealthy and sneaky and cool and a lot of the costumes came with a neato ninja sword - which looked kind of bad a** despite being made out of plastic... Although the pirate costumes on sale were also pretty cool and there was the whole hunting for treasure thing - or in this case candy.

In the end, with about ten days to spare before the whole Halloween day, Briar had decided to go with making his own costume and had gone with making a scarecrow costume.

It wasn't just any old scarecrow costume though, but a creepy one with real straw and red paint to make it look like blood - he'd even gotten a decent-sized pumpkin which he was planning to carve by himself and make look as creepy as possible - with whole idea being that he could carry it around with him. In fact to that end he had even managed to hunt down a tea light so that it would be all lit up and everything come Halloween night.

It had taken him up until three days before Halloween to get everything ready to his satisfaction, but now it was and here he was. In fact he had finally finished carving the pumpkin to his liking just that very evening.

Flopping out on his bed Briar lazily eyed the costume hanging proudly up on the wardrobe - although the hanging up was more his Mum's doing rather than his - after some debating Thomas and he had agreed that they'd get their older sibs to do the judging over who had gotten the most candy, particularly as Thomas only lived down the road to him and his brother Scott was down for the weekend anyway.

Briar hadn't actually mentioned that little factor to his brother yet, but he was pretty sure that Scott would go for it - especially if he offered him some of the candy...

Just as he was pretty sure that he was going to ace the whole thing.

After all the costume had turned out pretty swell and the pumpkin looked pretty bad a** if he did say so himself and he did because he had spent next to forever on carefully carving it just so with narrow-looking eyes and lots and lots of pointy teeth... After all when all was said and done there were cookies at stake - a whole months worth - and Briar fully intended that they were going to be his cookies.

And so here he was with just three days left to go.

Three days to his birthday and three days to the bet - a bet he was going to ace.

Just three more days...

He could taste those cookies already.

-- 1026 words --