Daniel Jervis

Blake Martin

Chris Howard-Woods

Kali Edsall

Carson Sizemore

They’re going as uber-famous socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.

Weeks before Halloween, 11-year-old Kali Edsall and a friend decided what to wear for trick-or-treating. But this may be the last year the William Byrd Middle School sixth-grader seeks treats.

“I’m probably not gonna go next year,” Kali said. “We’re dressing up [this year], but we’re mostly going for the candy.”

The middle school years are when childlike behaviors of elementary school begin to fade and young adult actions start taking shape. It’s the years of first crushes and first kisses. The last years of childhood before formal prom and homecoming dances, learning to drive and applying to college.

There’s no exact age when trick-or-treating becomes too uncool, too little-kid. But like so much else about middle school, when it comes to Halloween, kids are caught in transition.

Thirteen-year-old Blake Martin, an eighth-grader, wears a shirt and tie to William Byrd Middle School this day — a ritual that football players practice on game days. Sixth grade was his last trick-or-treating year. Traveling house-to-house in his grandma’s neighborhood, he felt a little out of place.

“I felt sorta old compared to all the little kids,” he explained. “I didn’t go in seventh grade. I didn’t feel I needed to.”

But fellow eighth-grader Carson Sizemore is on the candy-and-costumes side of the spectrum.

“Of course I go,” the bright-eyed 13-year-old was not ashamed to admit. On Wednesday , she and a friend will collect candy dressed as hip-hop gangstas.

“We still act like we’re 5 years old half the time,” she explained. “If I stop getting the fun out of it, I won’t go anymore.”

At 11, sixth-grader Chris Howard-Woods, a Harry Potter look-alike with shaggy hair and round glasses, already can see the change. When he began asking classmates what they were wearing this Halloween, some asked, “What, you’re going trick-or-treating?”

The reaction does little to deter Chris, who will wear a bandanna and shades and an Afro wig to dress as a hippie. He sees himself trick-or-treating for the rest of his middle school years.

“I think it’s fun to dress up in the middle of the night and go up to people’s houses and get candy,” he said. “People have told me that [trick-or-treating’s uncool], but I’m a believer.”

Already, these middle schoolers have seen older brothers and sisters drop the candy-collecting ritual, instead spending Halloween watching scary movies or handing out treats. They hear that high school kids still go, but do so without costumes.

For Daniel Jervis, last Halloween was his sister’s — now a high school freshman — final year to trick-or-treat. Dressed as the Phantom of the Opera this Halloween, the sixth-grader will miss his sister because at the end of the night they traded sweets.

“I’m a picky candy eater,” he said.

Blake, the former trick-or-treater, is more open when it comes to treats. He’ll pass out candy at his grandma’s house, and lobby for her to buy Reese’s peanut butter candy and old-school Hershey’s.

“But I’m good with anything,” he admits.

Candy, after all, is never uncool.