(Click this picture for spooky poems)
“That’s so gruesome!” Megan said.
“Of course it is,” Stephen said, “it’s supposed to be. What’s the fun in Halloween if the stories aren’t even spooky?”
“They don’t have to be gruesome to be spooky,” Megan said. “Tell him Jeffrey.”
“You tell him,” Jeff laughed. “Let’s hear your story and we can decide if spooky equals gruesome.”
“Okay, I will,” Megan said, and she launched into her story.
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Perhaps you’ve heard the tales of children avoiding houses of old widowed men or mysterious old women. Well that’s how this story starts out. The older kids always warned the younger ones against coming close to the house of old Ms. McHumphrey.
“She’s a witch,” they’d say.
One year a boy by the name of Jester Tryon decided to prove the older kids wrong. He knew the stories. He knew how old widowed men usually turned out to be famous people hiding from the media. And old women living alone weren’t really witches.
To prove his point even further and to show how unafraid he was, Jester Tryon decided to wait until Halloween when he would be the first kid in many years to go trick-or-treating at the house of Ms. McHumphrey.
Well, Halloween came. Children raced from door to door shouting out “TRICK OR TREAT!” At each door they’d receive their candy and immediately move on to the next house. But every child ran right past the house of Ms. McHumphrey like she’d set them on fire if they took too long.
Jester watched as he, his sister and brother neared Ms. McHumphrey’s house, his nerves unsettling him so much that he sometimes forgot to say “trick or treat” at one person or another’s house.
“Jester, what are you waiting for? Come on!” his sister yelled.
Jester couldn’t. His heart was pumping too much. Ms. McHumphrey’s house lie just after the next house. If he trick-or-treated at that house, there would be nothing between him and the haunted house.
Not haunted, he reminded himself. He couldn’t let himself chicken out now.
“Trick or treat!”
They received handfuls of candy at that house, and Jester would have guessed leaving that porch that he’d accidentally lose his heart because it beat so hard.
Jester’s brother and sister raced past Ms. McHumphrey’s house like it had the plague. Jester paused at the border between houses, looked up at Ms. McHumphrey’s front door and gulped. He almost panicked but stopped himself. He had to knock. He had to.
“Jester! What are you waiting for?” his brother called out. “Run!”
That did it to him. Jester walked up to Ms. McHumphrey’s steps, his breathing increasing with each step he took.
“Jester, no!” his sister called out.
“Jester, come back quick!” his brother yelled out.
But Jester approached the door. And rang the bell.
He stood frozen there what felt like an hour, but was really just thirty seconds. A very dim porch light turned on and Jester could see Ms. McHumphrey just inside as she turned the doorknob. His heart continued to pound and his breathing was like one continuous movement because he breathed in and out so fast.
The door began to creak open. Jester wished he hadn’t been so stupid.
“Trick…trick…trick or treat,” he almost whispered.
“Boo!” Ms. McHumphrey shouted.
Jester jumped. But Ms. McHumphrey began laughing. It wasn’t a witch laugh, but Jester couldn’t decide what kind of laugh it was.
“You want a treat, do you?” Ms. McHumphrey asked.
“Yuh…yes,” Jester responded.
“Well I’ll give you a treat if you help me out with a small task, okay?” Ms McHumphrey asked in return.
“Okay.”
“I’ve got a ghost downstairs and a goblin upstairs,” she said “and they’re supposed to be the other way around. The ghost belongs upstairs and the goblin belongs downstairs. If you will help me switch them, I’ll give you some candy.”
Jester wanted to cry but he was too terrified to. He wanted to run but he couldn’t remember how to. He stood there paralyzed. He was standing in front of a witch. A real witch!
Ms. McHumphrey began laughing again, and this time Jester realized what kind it was. It was a normal human laugh! Ms McHumphrey the witch was laughing like a human!
“I’m not really serious about the ghost and the goblin,” she said. “Those things don’t really exist, you know. And I’m not a witch like you probably think I am. But here, let me go get my Halloween candy real quick.”
Jester stood at her open doorway while she got the candy. He couldn’t decide whether to be relieved that she wasn’t a witch or worry that maybe she still really was. But he didn’t have enough time to decide before she arrived back in front of him with a large bowl of candy.
“I don’t get many ‘trick-or-treaters,’” she said. “How about taking it all?”
“Yes…ma’am,” Jester said.
Together they got all of the candy into his bag.
“Thank you,” he told Ms. McHumphrey, and as he did, he realized the mistake he’d made.
He’d just turned his back on a maybe witch!
But it was too late. He moved to the stairs and felt relief washing over him as he descended and he felt nothing grabbing for him.
Soon enough he was in front of his brother and sister who both look dumbfounded.
“You’re crazy!” his brother said.
“You did it!” his sister said. “Look how much candy you got!”
“I did it,” he grinned.