Trick or Treating

"Poppy!" the little six year-old yelled as the door opens. She runs in and is followed by her parents walking.

"Hey princess, I didn't know you were coming over."

"Yeah, mommy and daddy hafta go to a meeting."

I look at her parents with raised eyebrows.

"Uh. Yeah. This thing came up," my step-daughter says then adds. "Can you watch her tonight?"

I nod and they drop off a bag and head out.

"Well, princess, what shall we do?"

She whispers, "Can I go trickertreating, poppy? Please?"

"Did ...," I started then stopped and finished with "But, of course. We are going to need to hustle up a costume for you."

Her parents belong to some religious cult that believes Satan is lurking behind every bush and stone, and celebrating Halloween was "inviting the devil into your heart."

"It's already 6:00 pm so we need to get busy building you a costume."

"Yay!" she then launches into a song about going 'trickrtreating' and dances around my living room. I head out to the garage and pull out a box of her birthday stuff. She follows me still singing.

I find a couple of plastic table clothes and a tiara. I took them all into the house and put them on the kitchen table. I dug through the bag they left and found a black t-shirt.

30 minutes later she was ringing her first doorbell, saying in a whisper "Trickertreat".

My neighbor Tim answered, looked down and gently asks "Who are you supposed to be?"
"I am Princess of the Earth!" she says pointing to her tiara, cape of stars and a picture of the Earth taped to her chest.

She holds out her shopping bag and he drops a handful of candy in it, saying "Here you go, little princess."

She squeals with delight.