Halloween Treats
Witches and skeletons, pumpkins, and zombies…
This year, they are all here.
At a quarter to six, I stopped my manic re-write (my first story bounced off Interzone yesterday, and I have one day left—today—to push it back out before the NaNoWriMo madness starts) and rushed down to the kitchen to put the pigs’ tails on the simmer.
At the stroke of six, the doorbell rang.
Last year, I filled up a big bowl with chewits, lollies, skittles and malthesers in anticipation of the onslaught, and not a single child came. We sucked on Halloween sweets all year. Now, I was out of treats.
No, that’s not strictly true. If I wanted to get into the spirit of the thing, I could dress up in my Dementor-costume and hand out salty liquorice. But I may be arrested for child poisoning, and my liqs are precious.
I shoo-ed the first crowd of half-a-dozen or so away with two packs of skittles and a jaw-breaker which were left in the bowl from last year and retreated back into the kitchen. The pigs’ tails need an hour or so on the simmer, and I had to get a move on to get dinner ready and finish the story rewrite.
The doorbell rang again. A mother and her two offspring looked at me expectedly. I hopped on one leg while trying to put a shoe on the other: “So sorry! Is that the time? I plain forgot. I’m off to buy some sweeties, come by on your way back!”
I pulled on a jacket and jogged to the shop across the road, narrowly avoiding a collision with a witch.
The shop had a bewildering choice of sweets, and I had no idea what to grab. Then I spotted an offer on two multi-packs of mini chocolate bars. I rushed home, tore them open with my teeth, upended the contents into the Halloween bowl and got rid of my jacket.
Silence.
John and I don’t like chocolate bars, but we may treat ourselves to a pint later on.
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Denni