| Anna didn't fit the stereotype. I mean, you'd never had guessed what her Dad did for a living. Not that you can tell, but still. She didn't look like a kid who grew up around chilled citizens. She was not nerdy and introverted with polyester clothes and eyes downcast. She also wasn't flashy and goth like, wearing her angst on her eyelids. Instead she was mostly normal. Regular t-shirts, jeans and a spunky upbeat attitude. Not a cheerleader, but popular enough to win some minor student council elections and go to Girl's State. I guess I had figured that having Death in the family would warp you in some way, but it wasn't apparent.
What did become apparent, on that first Halloween after high school graduation, was her twisted sense of humor. After years of listening to whispers and stares behind her back I guess she felt she was allowed a sick joke, so she invited a bunch of friends to her house and had a slightly damaged coffin brought in to hold a mannequin. Actually a mannequin and a keg, but the keg was emptied out and when the party moved outside about 10 pm or so. The joke was that her cousin, dressed to match the dummy, took the place of the mannequin during that process. He proceeded to scare the piss out of a bunch of us later on in the evening. Anna, a little high and very satisfied with herself laughed till beer came out of her nose. If she had not been so darn cute in her little Bo peep outfit it would have looked gross.
I mentioned that later that evening, as the two of us sat alone in the back seat of the hearse. "Yes," she said, batting her eyelashes and twirling her fake pigtails- "I'm baaaaad" No, I corrected her as I pulled off the wig, you're BAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Actually, I was wrong about that too. She was not sheepish. | 
