As the days passed, Jenny started to gather the supplies for her plot. Halloween is just around the corner and she was having all her friends do a group costume party together — and she wanted her brother to be the star and center of it all. So, she ran to the local party supply store and picked up the costumes and accessories that she and her brother needed to make it a special night that nobody would ever forget. After she got home, she grabbed a box and stuffed the costume into it, wrapping it with some festive Christmas wrapping paper to add extra layers to her teasing.

By this time, Danny had almost completely forgotten about the dare. School and friends had served as a good distraction. Heck, he didn’t really fear it much and was waiting for the trees to finally shed their leaves or the lawn to grow taller. He knew it was going to be some dumb chore that would tick him off a little, but he knew he also knew he could handle it. However, one day after he had gotten home and set his bag in his room, he spotted his sister standing in the doorway with a big, shit-eating grin on her face. “I got you something, little bro”, she said through her big, devilish smile. Danny just stood there, confused as to what she could even be planning, Jenny crooked her finger, beckoning Danny to follow her, “C’mere, follow me.” Danny crept out of his room and followed her as she led him to the bedroom next door — her room. Jenny bent down and reached under her bed, pulling out the decorative package. “Here, I got an early Christmas present for you”, she said as she held it in her arms. Danny just gave her a deeply puzzled look as Jenny moved forward and stood in front of him with the package. “Open it”, she said impatiently. Danny looked at the package and then back at her skeptically, but she just shook it, insisting he take it. He grabbed the thin box and could immediately tell it was one of those boxes you use for clothes, with the shape and thin cardboard being unmistakable to the touch under the wrapping paper. He grabbed a corner of the paper and tore it off.

tissue, he could see something bright blue. He pulled back the tissue and his puzzled expression only grew once he saw the contents in the box. He looked up at Jenny and asked confusingly, “What the heck?” Jenny excitedly threw up her arms and exclaimed, “Merry Christmas!” In the box, there is a package with a costume, and on the package’s printed insert was a teen girl wearing an Alice in Wonderland costume. In the package itself, Danny could see a bright blue costume that matched the one on the insert. Also stuffed in the bottom corner, are some white tights still fresh folded in their packaging, too.

Giving no time to process what is in front of him, Jenny reaches up and pats her brother on his head. “You remember our little bet?”, she says with a devilish tone. Danny’s attention snaps to his sister and his eyes go wide as an offended look crosses his face. “Well,” she continues, “Nikkie, Rachel, and I want to do a group costume for Halloween, but we couldn’t figure out who would play the part of Alice. I want to be the Cheshire Cat, Nikkie wants to be the Queen, and Rachael wants to be the Mad Hatter. So, I told them I’d find someone to come join us.” Jenny beamed with malevolent pride over how she had tricked her brother. Danny’s face turned bright red with anger and embarrassment. “What?!”, he screamed, “There’s no way in hell I’m wearing this!”

Jenny tossed her head back and laughed evilly. “Oh, you totally are, little bro”, she declared with malevolent glee.

“The hell I am,” Danny said, growling as his anger rose, dropping the box to the floor, and spilling its contents.

“No, you are. You know the rules in this household. We made a deal and you can’t back out of it.” Jenny had her brother trapped and she knew it.

Danny huffed and screamed, “Bull! I’m not wearing it and you’re not making me!”

“Oh? Are we going to get Mom and Dad involved in this?” Jenny said as she grinned, knowing she had her brother pinned.

“No,” Danny sputtered, “But I’m not wearing that shit!”

“So you want mom and dad, then?” she said, pushing it further.

“No, Jen, I’m not wearing that, and that’s final!” he shouted before storming off to his room and slamming his door.

Jenny just laughed as she gathered up the items her brother tossed to the floor. She then put them aside knowing full well what she had to do to get her brother in line.

As the evening went on Danny just pouted and sulked on his computer, still angry about what his sister just pulled on him. If his friends ever saw him in that ridiculous thing, he’d be the laughingstock for weeks. As he was sitting there watching his favorite streamer play roleplay Grand Theft Auto, he heard his dad call for him from the other end of the house. Immediately, a feeling hit Danny in the gut. He knew that Jenny had waited until Dad got home in order to tattle on him.

Jenny stood there with her arms crossed and a smug look on her face as she watched her brother round the corner of the hallway and into the dining room. Their father stood next to her, unhappy that he was being interrupted by their antics. As soon as Danny stopped in the dining room, his father spoke up: “So, I heard you’re trying to back out of a bet with your sister. Is this correct?” Danny stood there with an angered, sheepish look. He meekly replied with a “yes”, dreading what his father was about to say. With a deep sigh, his dad replied, “Well, you know the rules around here, kiddo. You make a bet, you have to fulfill it.” Danny turned his head to the side momentarily, trying to contain his emotions. He stood there for a moment talking back and saying, “Yeah, I know. But Jen wants me to do something really stupid and embarrassing.” His dad just gives him a dismissive, uncaring wave. “So?”, he says, “It’s not like you two haven’t challenged each other to do stupid things in the past.” Danny stood there for a moment, trying to figure out a way to plead his case without embarrassing himself by spilling the beans before replying, “This is different, Dad.” Their dad gives a deep sigh again, still annoyed that this is what he has to come home to. He asks, “Ok? And how is this different?” Danny is again stuck and unable to fully answer. Even the thought of admitting what Jenny wants him to do is too embarrassing, especially in front of his father. He finally blurts out, “She wants me to wear something stupid and embarrassing.” Their dad lets out a light chuckle and shrugs, “That’s it?” Danny stood there flustered and angry, wishing his dad would figure it out on his own and be on his side, but he wasn’t. Instead, his dad continues with, “What does she want you to wear that’s so embarrassing, hmm?” Danny just stood there, locked in headlights. “Well?”, his dad pressed further.

Jenny, seeing how embarrassed her brother was, jumped in, declaring, “I want him to be Alice for Halloween, Dad.” Their dad snapped his attention to her, giving her a quizzical look. Jenny continued further, stating, “You know, Alice in Wonderland.” Their dad immediately hung his head down and cradled his forehead with his hands, rubbing his forehead gently. He let out another big sigh, exclaiming, “Really, Jen? Are you kidding me?” Jenny shot a look at her brother who was now completely flushed red with embarrassment. “No”, she said, “My friends and I are doing a group costume and we want Danny to be Alice.” Their dad continued to rub his head, mulling things over and hating that he had been put in the middle of this right after a long day of work.

After what seemed like hours to Danny, he finally found his motivation to speak up, stating, “Jenny cheated, Dad.” Jenny immediately laughed at the accusation, “No I didn’t.” Their dad looked from his palms, now a little more curious about what was going on. “Cheated? How’d she cheat?” Danny stammered, trying to find the words to explain it before piping up again saying, “She lied to me and didn’t tell me that she knew how to play Smash.” Their dad looked over at Jenny, giving her a condescending look. “Yeah,” Jenny replied, “I did trick you, but I didn’t cheat.” Danny scoffed and exclaimed, “Same difference.” Jenny laughed at him, responding again with, “You got hustled, bro. That’s not cheating.” Their dad raised an eyebrow toward Jenny, a little surprised and impressed that she was able to pull the wool over Danny’s eyes like that, especially with a video game. He sighed and raised his hand to stop all the yammering, saying, “All right you two, I need to think it over, OK? I had a long day, I’m tired, and I don’t want to deal with any shenanigans tonight. I’ll talk it over with your mother and come to a verdict later.” Jenny nodded and beamed, giving him an “OK”, knowing she still had Dad still partly in her court. She walked by Danny and gave him another one of her signature devilish smirks and Danny just stood there, glaring at her in return.

* * *

A couple of days later, the weekend came around again. Danny sat in his room, playing his Switch again, but avoiding Smash for obvious reasons. He hasn’t touched the game ever since his sister gave him his “Christmas present”. As he was crossing the line for his second lap, he heard a hard knock on his bedroom door. Danny answered with a usual, “Yeah?”, and the door flung open without a care for his privacy — his dad striding in. His dad raised a finger to his eyebrow and gave it a light scratch, and with a heavy sigh, he said, “We need to talk.” Danny looked up at his dad, knowing exactly what they were going to talk about. He grumbled under his breath and just stopped his kart in the middle of the track because he was playing multiplayer and couldn’t stop. Thankfully, it’s not that big of a deal as it’s just random players and he’s not doing well, but still annoying. Danny stood up from the floor and faced his dad, the jazzy, cheery racing music of Mount Warrior playing on. His dad gestured to the TV and asked, “Can you turn that off?” Danny reached for his TV remote on his bed and muted it, tossing the remote back to where it was.

“All right”, his dad stated, “I’ve talked things over with your mother and gotten your sister’s side of the story. Now, it’s your turn to defend yourself. So, what do you have to say?”

“She cheated, Dad”, Danny replied, with a stressed tone, “She lied to me and didn’t tell me that she knew how to play Smash. She also didn’t tell me her boyfriend was some big-shot player who taught her, either.”

“OK”, his dad nodding to show he understands his position, “I understand that you think she cheated, but I don’t think she did. Like Jen said, she hustled you, and there are no rules against that. Unless she manipulated the software to give her an advantage, or something similar, she won based on her skill, with that skill also including her skill to deceive you.”

Danny’s heart sank when he heard this. He had hoped his dad would be on his side with this, but apparently not. He did, however, still have another club in the bag that he had been mulling over the last few days.

“Well, what she wants is unreasonable, Dad.”, Danny exclaimed.

“Unreasonable how?”, his dad asked, “It’s just some clothes.”

“Dad,” Danny stressed, “If people see me wearing that, it’s going to ruin me. I’ll be the laughingstock of the whole town.”

“And?” His dad replied, shrugging.

“And that will cause everyone to laugh at me.” Danny paused a moment, and an idea quickly formed in his head to play toward his dad’s love for his job and reputation popped into his head, “And people will be laughing at you, too, because your boy is wearing a dress.”

His dad sighed and gave him a shrug, “So you’ll possibly be laughed at. Maybe. But I doubt it will happen because it’s Halloween. Everyone is going to be out having fun and making fools of themselves.”

Backed into a corner, Danny stammered out again, exclaiming, “And what if I get beaten up? Everyone is going to kill me if they see me wearing that.”

His dad grumbled and sighed, “You’re not going to get beaten up. That’s just a slippery slope playing out in your head, you’ll be fine.”

“I will”, persisted Danny. “You don’t know what it’s like for us boys anymore. It’s dangerous to do stuff like that.”

“I’m telling you, it’s Halloween,” his dad explains, “Boys run around crossdressing all the time and it’s never a big deal.”

Danny scoffed, “That’s not true.”

“I’m telling you, it’s Halloween,” his dad explains, “Boys run around crossdressing all the time and it’s never a big deal.”

Danny scoffed, “That’s not true.”

“It absolutely is”, his dad stated. “And this argument is not going to work. Your mom and I already discussed this at length and we came to the same conclusion. You’ll live.” He watched Danny’s expression turn to sullen anger as he further explained. “And if something does happen, then you can tell us and we’ll take care of it.” Danny just stood there, further angered by his father’s logic. “Also,” his dad continued, “You’ll be with your sister and her friends, so you’ll be even safer.”

Danny stood there, fuming. Then suddenly, something popped into his head, “That’s two things, Dad”, Danny proclaimed with a bit of glimmer.

“What do you mean?” His dad looked at him, pausing before asking.

“She wants me to wear the costume and go out for Halloween”, Danny could feel a little hope at the end of the tunnel as he continued, saying, “When we made the bet, we agreed on doing one thing, not two or more things.”

“I think it counts as one whole request, Danny”, his dad stated. “She wants you for the whole day. Yes, it’s technically multiple requests, but they’re all for that one specific goal she has in mind. And Halloween isn’t Halloween without a costume and going out with people to party, trick-or-treat, and everything else.”, he states. His dad was actually impressed with this argument. Danny tried to find a loophole, and it was a pretty slick attempt to try and use it despite its flaws. Danny just stood there, angered. He no longer had any ammo left and it seemed like his dad was working against him. He always felt like Jenny was the favorite in the family, and this proved it further.

“Do you have anything else to add?” His dad asked. Danny huffed and grumbled out a “no” in response. “All right,” his dad continued, “it’s decided then. Your sister has control over you this Halloween. Whatever she wants, goes, and I don’t want to hear complaints.” His dad paused for a moment before continuing. “And I think this’ll build some character in you and teach you a good lesson.” Danny could feel his anger rising as his dad delivered his verdict.

“Also, your mom and I talked about if you try to back out of this. You know the donation closet at her church?” his dad asked. Danny looks up at his dad, cocking his head to the side in annoyance and disbelief. “Well,” his dad resumes, “you’ll be cleaning that room from top to bottom and getting everything organized for the church.” Danny tensed up, his anger practically bulging out of his skin. That donation “closet” is huge and an absolute wreck. It would take over a week to get even half of that thing sorted. His dad then reached out and ruffled his hair. “Sorry, kiddo. But this’ll teach you to be careful and not to get hustled again. It’s a good lesson, I promise.” His dad then walked out of the room and it took everything Danny had to not start punching a bed, wall, or something. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He couldn’t believe that his dad, a man, couldn’t understand his plight.