Page 29 of Black and White, Twice the Might (Cadenbury Town #8)

I laugh as I look at us in the mirror. Sly is Han Solo , I am Luke Skywalker , Xander is Kylo Ren, and Enoch is Yoda. I must admit, we look good, especially Sly. He is rocking the Han Solo look.

We meet at the manor. Everyone has gone all out with their costumes.

Nora and Connie are in matching wolf costumes, and they look so cute.

Titus and Kean are Beetlejuice and Lydia , with Kean in the red wedding dress. I secretly think he really does like the dress.

Temp and Ben are dressed as Ghostbusters , complete with the proton packs.

Nix and Cam are dressed as The Blues Brothers . They actually look good in the suits and hats.

Sal and Jude are dressed as Thor and Loki. Jude is Thor and Sal Loki, complete with the weird headdress.

Alfred and Justice are dressed as Gru and Kevin the Minion . Justice must have used magic to make himself look so, so yellow.

Adhan is dressed as a pirate, and Ernest is dressed as a captain from the 1800s British Navy.

Emily is dressed as a Victorian lady in a royal blue riding outfit.

Jodie is dressed as a 1920s flapper, and John as a 1920s gangster.

Sion and Cass are dressed up as cowboys.

Clarence and Callum came as Day of the Dead characters.

Nix and Cam took Nora, Xander and Enoch out trick or treating, and they all had great fun. I’m glad the boys feel safe with the others now. And, of course, the boys had to show John their sweet haul.

But now here we are at the fair. We’re going to play on some rides, maybe walk the Haunted Walk. I’m not sure about the Haunted House or the Hall of Mirrors yet. I might give them a miss, to be honest.

We also didn’t have dinner this evening, everyone opting for totally unhealthy fair food, much to the satisfaction of Sly and my brothers.

As a family, we've decided to ride the ghost train together, so we go and queue up.

Elliot is walking past and laughs when he sees our costumes. “It’s a shame there isn’t an award for best fancy dress. Pretty sure Kean would win hands down.”

“Look, I’m a bell,” Kean says, swishing from side to side, making us all laugh.

“Are you joining us on the ride?” Ernest asks him.

“You know what? I think I will,” Elliot replies.

The train carts start coming out of the tunnel, and as people get out, the family starts going in.

Sly, the boys, and I get in the first one. Adhan, Emily, Elliot and Ernest take the next one.

Our cart starts to move, and we enter the tunnel. As we do, I see magic flying in. So, Ernest and the other witches are adding to the ride. This should be interesting.

We yelp and then laugh as we drive through smoke and bats. Behind us, we hear Ernest and the others in his cart yelp. I look at Sly, and he grins. “I might have doused them in water.”

“I’m gonna find out who did that and get them back,” we hear Ernest say.

We all laugh at him, and suddenly it’s like a bucket of slime has been dumped on Sly.

The boys and I burst out laughing as we see it falling all over his hair and face, and pooling in his lap.

“You got slimed,” Xander says, laughing.

“Take pictures,” Ernest shouts to us.

“Ernest, it’s so on,” Sly calls back, giving an evil laugh and magicking the slime away.

“My bad, anyway, it wasn’t me, it was Justice,” he calls back

“What did I do?” Justice calls as they come into the tunnel, also all yelping when they are doused in water.

“Slimed Sly,” Ernest shouts back.

We can’t hear Justice’s reply, but what we do hear is Ernest’s scream of terror. We look around to see what’s happening.

Ernest is looking at his lap, moving his hand and yelling. “Get it off, get it off, get it off,”

I’m not sure what it was, but whatever it was, we watch Ernest use magic and flings it back at Temp. The next moment, it explodes all over Temp, covering him in glitter.

“I hate you so much right now, Ernie ,” Temp yells, loud enough for us all to hear.

We hear Ben loudly laughing his head off.

I turn back around and look at the scary attractions. This part looks like an old dungeon, with fake stone walls and sections with different attractions. Skeletons and dummies are chained to wall or the floor.

I laugh when I see a quartet of Grim Reapers playing instruments made out of bones in what looks like a music room.

“Watch this,” I say as I send my magic out to the Reapers. I make the carriages stop, and the Reapers surround Ernest’s cart and start singing, “Baby Shark.”

We all turn around and watch what’s happening.

“Oh dear gods, make them stop,” Emily pleads.

As the Reapers sing, ‘ doo-doo ’, they point bones at them, covering them in silly string.

I see Elliot wave his hand, and the Reapers move away, and the carts start moving again.

“That was awesome,” Enoch says, as we all high-five each other.

I must admit, I did enjoy that.

Suddenly, cherubs appear around our cart and start singing “Cotton Eye Joe.”

“Of all the songs to pick, why that one?” I ask, my eyes crossing.

“It might be a crap song, but look, we can seat dance,” Sly says.

And he’s right, so now the four of us are dancing away in our carts until just as quickly as they arrived, the cherubs vanish, and there is blissful silence.

That silence is broken by a really loud scream of terror, making more than just me jump.

“Whoa, that made me jump,” Enoch says with a hand on his chest.

“Me too,’ Xander says.

Our cart starts going up an incline.

“Whoa,” Enoch shouts. “The track’s falling away.”

I look over the side of the cart, and yes, the track looks to be falling down into the dark abyss.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who jumps as a pod of dolphins leap out of the water and over our cart.

“Wow,” I say as the dolphins keep up their display.

Sly puts his hand out to touch one. “It feels so real.”

Suddenly, from behind, we hear a loud yell. We turn around and look past Ernest’s cart to the one behind, and see a large tentacle has wrapped around their cart and seems to be shaking it from side to side.

I see a tentacle wrap around the middle of Ernest’s cart, and now they are being shaken, before one does the same to ours.

Once the shaking stops, it feels like we’re flying.