The Usual Rules Chapter 10 Summary

  • When Halloween rolls around, Amelia and Wendy discuss what they're going to do and how they'll dress up.
  • Eventually they settle on taking Louie trick-or-treating and then babysitting him. Even though Louie's been having a hard time lately, he seems excited for Halloween and talks a lot about what he wants to dress up as.
  • He asks them if Halloween magic is real and if there are ghosts that will come out, and Wendy assures him that he doesn't have to be scared because they'll be with him all night.
  • The girls make Louie a robot costume but he decides he doesn't want to wear it at the last minute and decides to just go in his Spiderman pajamas.
  • Wendy doesn't have a costume, so they go into her mother's closet to find something to wear. She hasn't been in there since 9/11 and seeing all of her mom's stuff overwhelms her.
  • She's trying on one of her mother's dresses when she smells her perfume and starts to freak out. Wendy cries while Amelia waits it out patiently.
  • Then they go trick-or-treating and get plenty of candy, but Louie is sad by the end of the night. He says he thought there would be Halloween magic around and he wanted to see ghosts. Poor kid.
  • When Louie goes to bed, Amelia pulls out a Ouija board and Wendy tells it that she's looking for a lost parent; she needs to reach that person.
  • As she's asking the board if her lost parent is there, they hear a knock on the door. And when she opens it, she's shocked to find Garrett—her father—standing in the doorway.