Fourteen year old Max smiled as he waved “good night” to his best friend Danny. It was Halloween and it had been a fun night of trick or treating, but one that both knew would be their last. Some of their friends from school had decided not to do it this year, but he and Danny had wanted just one more such night, before putting it behind them, like they were doing with so many other things from their childhood. Max sighed, was he really ready to grow up he wondered. Taking off the mask that he’d been wearing all night, he looked again at the decorations outside his home, and then at the other houses on the street. The sights were those that he’d seen every Halloween for as long as he could remember, but tonight was somehow different. He looked at the mask in his hand and thought of the other masks that he had yet to take off, if he was to be true to himself.

Max entered the house and threw his sack of treats on the floor. His parents looked up from the living room floor, where Max’s nine year old sister, Nina, had scattered all her ’stuff” and smiled. They knew that this was to be his last year of trick or treating and wondered what thoughts were going through their son’s head. Max was different from most kids and couldn’t seem to let anything go before first analyzing it to death. Lying in bed ten minutes later, Max was proving just how well they knew their son. It seemed to him that everyone was hiding behind some kind of mask, that no one was really who they pretended to be. He thought of the loud and aggressive Mr. Holloway down the street, and wondered what he was hiding behind his belligerent exterior. Was he really just a frightened child inside, determined to never let anyone get close enough to discover his secret? A wave of sympathy swept over him just for a second and than he smiled at the thought. What would old man Holloway, as the boys had always called him while keeping their distance, think if he knew what was going though the youth’s mind at the moment?

Sleep continued to avoid “Serious Max”, as his parents had dubbed him years ago, because he could never let things go like other kids but had to figure out why people acted as they did? In Kindergarten, he had spent days wondering why another kid’s parents didn’t love him, in fact had abused him so much that he had to be taken from them and placed in foster care. Why did some kids have to bully anyone that was different, like Jack Foster because he stammered, or Irene Jones because her parents were on welfare, and she couldn’t dress as well as the other girls in her class? Were they covering up something about themselves? Were they just wearing a mask? Did they think that somehow they would build themselves up by tearing another down? He remembered Janice Butterworth, a girl two years his senior, who had committed suicide last year because her classmates accused her of being a lesbian, and started taunting her with derogatory names. Why did people have to act that way? If Janice was a lesbian, why should she have to hide it or face a lifetime of ridicule and debasement? He wondered how many other boys and girls in his school were now hiding behind a mask for the same same reason, and how unhappy they must be? If the other kids had accepted Janice for who she was, she might still be alive today, and others like her would not have to go around like everyday was Halloween. Max knew that he liked girls but he also knew that if he had been gay, he wouldn’t want to be bullied either. Even grown ups hid behind masks because even most adults had not learned to love and accept someone who was different.

Max sighed and looked at the clock, it was 1:30 and tomorrow being a school day, he needed to get some sleep. He was thankful that his parents had taught him tolerance, and to respect others regardless of race, religion, colour, culture and yes, even sexual orientation. He determined that just as he had taken of his Halloween mask for the last time, he was going to work towards removing the ignorance still so prevalent in society. Max smiled as he drifted off to sleep to dream of a day who no one would need to hide behind a mask.