Too Big for Halloween?

Too Big for Halloween?

I don't like it here.

I don't like the food, I don't like wearing white, I don't like how they make me take sponge baths, and I don't like how the orderlies shave me each day.

But I won't be here much longer.

To understand why that is, we need to go back a few weeks to the end of October. I had just started seventh grade, which meant Junior High. I wasn't so sure that I liked Junior High as much as Elementary School. There was a lot more homework, and the kids weren't as nice to each other, but I was walking home from school with Jill, who had been my best friend since second grade. It was a beautiful fall day, and I felt happy.

"Can you believe," I asked, "that you and I are still walking home from school together?"

"I can believe it, Becky," said Jill in an almost miserable voice.

"I love this time of year!" I said.

"Why?" Jill sounded disgusted. "It's when we go back to school."

"True, but the weather is so nice, and the leaves turn those pretty colors. Do you remember when we used to rake the leaves in our yards together. We'd rake them into piles and jump all over them."

"Yeah," said Jill rolling her eyes, "you do know that we're not six years old anymore, don't you?"

I decided to change the subject. "You know," I said, "the other really cool thing about this time of year is that Halloween is coming."

Now Jill got sarcastic. "Oh yeah, how could I have forgotten that? Real cool!"

"I haven't even decided what to be yet. Have you?"

Now Jill seemed to get shocked. "Eww! Are you serious? We're in Junior High now. Nobody dresses up for Halloween in Junior High, at least nobody mature."

"But," I said sadly, "You and I go trick or treating every year."

"We went trick or treating every year, because we were kids. It's for babies."

Now I really felt bad. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered how much I really liked Jill. It seemed that not to long ago, I could remember when she was a sweet girl who was fun to play with, but now.

But then, I saw another opportunity to change the subject. We were passing by old lady Pritchett's house, which some people called the Haunted House. It was a large and somewhat scary looking old house with dark candles in the windows, and a yard that was filled with shadows from the old oak tree in the center.

"Do you remember when we used to play here?" I asked.

"Um. . .yeah," now Jill sounded a little scared. "That's where that mean old lady lives."

"Mean?" That was wrong.

"Yeah, there's a story going around that a boy walked into her house and disappeared a few years ago. Then another boy went in there and got his head cut off."

"What! You know none of that's true. You and I used to play here all the time, and she was the nicest person on the block. We loved her." Now I felt tears in my eyes. I tried to hold them back, but it was just so unfair to hear Jill saying bad things about someone so nice.

"Oh great, now you're crying," said Jill rolling her eyes again. "You know, you really are the biggest baby that ever lived."

I'm not sure how I would have answered that if the door to the house hadn't suddenly opened and an ancient looking woman hadn't stepped out onto the porch.

"Oh, my God! It's her!" Jill turned and bolted up the street away from the house.

I turned and looked at Mrs. Pritchett, feeling embarrassed that there were still tears in my eyes. "Well, Well," she said with a smile. "You rather resemble a little girl who used to play here. Her name was Becky if I remember right. She looked just like you except that she was shorter and more cheerful."

I smiled through my tears. "Mrs. Pritchett, I am happy to see you." I ran into the yard and gave her a hug.

"Well, well. said Mrs. Pritchett. "Was that your friend, Jill, that just left here in such a hurry?"

I nodded. "She's not nice anymore. She was saying mean things about you."

"Dear Me. You're clearly very upset. Fortunately, I know the perfect cure for that: Some delicious cookies and lemonade from my kitchen. Will you come in?"

Now, I really felt better. Mrs. Pritchett had not invited me in for cookies and lemonade in a long time. I smiled and eagerly followed her into the house. It felt so good to be in her parlor. It was very dusty, but I didn't mind that. It just sort of made me feel more at home. I was a little put out to see that there was casket shaped box standing in the corner and what looked like a guillotine nearby.

"I see you're getting ready for Halloween," I said.

"What?" said Mrs. Pritchett coming in with a plate of cookies and a pitcher of lemonade. "Oh, no dear. I keep a casket and a guillotine in my livingroom all year round. Adds to the decorum." I laughed, although in hindsight, she sounded kind of serious.

"But seriously," she said in a less serious voice, "I use this," she indicated the guillotine, "to chop vegetables. Every once in a while, somebody offers to buy me a food processor, but I'm kind of a Luddite about certain things." She poured two glasses of lemonade." Now have a cookie and tell me what the problem is."

I shrugged and bit one of the cookies. It was delicious and made me feel happier. "It seems like everything is wrong," I said. "I used to think that I would like Junior High, but everyone's meaner there, both the kids and the teachers. Worse, Jill used to be my best friend, and I thought she still was, but ever since we started Junior High, she's gotten nasty. We just had a fight about Halloween."

"Halloween?"

"Yeah, She told me that we were too old for Halloween."

"Really? You might try telling her that Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I've got a few years on the two of you combined."

I smiled at that.

"Seriously," Mrs. Pritchett went on in a somewhat sadder voice, "Most people do outgrow Halloween, sooner or later. I imagine it's just going
to happen to you later."

"I don't want that," I said.

Mrs. Pritchett looked even sadder. "There's not a whole you can do about it," she said.

"Nothing?" I looked at Mrs. Pritchett more carefully. She seemed to have an even stranger look on her face, almost as if she were studying me.

After a long silence, she said to me, "Well, there might be something. Wait right here." She stood up and walked out of the room. I could hear some loud banging and crashing coming from the next room, but I decided not to ask about it. She came back in a few moments later, with a small bottle that looked like it had some kind of greenish liquid in it. "This," she said triumphantly, "is a special Halloween punch that I whipped up in my lab some time ago."

"Your lab?"

"Yes, indeed! If you really want to never outgrow Halloween, I suggest you have a sip."

Now, I had to laugh. "What will it do? Make me young forever?"

Mrs. Pritchett laughed at that too. "If I had something that could make a person eternally young, don't you think I'd bottle it and sell it? For that matter, don't you think I'd be drinking it myself? No, it won't stop you from aging exactly, but it will make you always love Halloween."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Well, the truth is that it is a little bit hard to explain. Maybe it would be better if you just tried some and saw for yourself." She uncorked the bottle and held it out to me.

I didn't reach for it at first. I couldn't explain it, but for the first time, I felt a little bit afraid of Mrs. Pritchett. "Is it safe?" I asked.

"Well, no," she admitted matter of factly.

"What?"

"Look,my dear." She came forward and put an arm around on my shoulder. "If it were safe, I would give some to every child in the world or at least every one on this block. I love Halloween that much. As it is, I only give some to people who really want to never outgrow Halloween. I think that you are such a person."

I looked at her and saw that there was still a friendly twinkle in her eye. I just couldn't imagine that she would hurt me. So, I took a deep breath and tasted the punch. It had a sort of sweet flavor that I liked. It made me feel strange. Almost light-headed.

"Very good," said Mrs. Pritchett. "I don't think it's going to have the vampire effect on you."

"Vampire effect?"

"Yes, if it did, I would need to find you a casket. And sometimes it has the headless effect. That's what the guillotine is for, but you look you got the werewolf effect, which is fine because there's full moon on Halloween this year."

"You're not making any sense," I said.

"Oh. I understand, but trust me, you will understand soon enough on Halloween. It just might be the greatest Halloween of your life."

After that, I said good-bye and left feeling a little bit disappointed.

The next few days were kind of depressing for me.

First there was the problem in the school cafeteria. The day after I drank the punch, Jill was nowhere around when it was time to walk to school, so I had to walk by myself. I wondered about it all morning. Then, at lunch, I saw Jill was sitting in the cafeteria next to a ninth grade girl that I knew by sight. I sat down at her table.

"Hi, Jill," I said trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

"Who is that?" said the ninth grade girl. She sounded disgusted.

I decided to try being friendly. "My name's Becky. Who are you?"

The girl looked annoyed. "I'm Charlotte," she said haughtily, "but don't you have any friends?"

"Er. . .of course."

"Well then, why don't you go eat with them instead of bugging us?"

This was uncomfortable. "I don't think you understand," I said slowly trying to assert myself. "Jill, here is my best friend."

Charlotte turned to Jill who now looked nervous. "Do you like her?" she asked incredulously.

"Oh. . .not really," said Jill. "We just used to be friends in Elementary School. Our mothers made us walk to school together."

"Jill!"

"Look, seriously, Becky," said Jill, "it would be better if you left now. This is kind of embarrassing for me."

"Kind of embarrassing for you." I stormed away from the table fighting back the tears.

Then the next night, my little brother insisted that my father take him out shopping for a Halloween costume. It didn't help that when I mentioned I wouldn't be dressing up for Halloween this year, my father said, "Well, I should think not. You're too big for it." But the worst was yet to come.

After they left, my mother said, "Sweetheart, With your father and brother out for the evening, maybe tonight would be a good time for a you and I to have a little talk."

"Talk?"

"Woman to woman."

I didn't like the sound of that, but I decided to sit and listen. "First of all," said my mother opening a plastic shopping bag, "I bought you a few things at the store."

I cringed because she pulled out a box of tampons. "I don't need those yet, Mom."

"O.k, but you will soon enough. We'll put them away until you need them. But you do need this," she pulled out a stick of deodorant. "I want you to start using this every day from now on." I groaned, but the truth was that my armpits had been feeling kind of gross lately, so I took it. "Also, I wonder if you want this." She had bought a woman's razor. "I happened to notice that you're getting some hair on your legs. Are you getting some anyplace else?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

"Good, now why don't you take a good hot shower, shampoo, and shave, and we'll see you how you do.

Well, I didn't do too bad. I scrubbed myself good in the shower. I also shaved my legs, my armpits, and even my vagina. After it was over, I put on some of the deodorant. Then my mother had to come running into the bathroom while I still had nothing on, but my towel and tell me that I was a "brand new woman." I didn't want to admit it, but I did feel kind of better about myself.

Then came Halloween. It was an ordinary school day except that a few boys started throwing shaving cream at each other and got sent home. I wondered about that. If a boy that age could do something like that on Halloween, then why couldn't a girl my age dress up and go trick-or-treating? Surely the latter was a better idea then the former.

After school, my brother went trick-or-treating. (He had ended up with a skeleton costume.) I stayed home, did my homework, and sometimes answered the doorbell when trick-or-treaters came. I tried to look pleasant when I passed out the candy, but I honestly didn't feel up to it. I wanted to yell at them something like "Enjoy yourselves, kids! In a few years, nobody will let you."

Then, it was Halloween evening. I decided to take a shower. As I stepped into the bathroom, I reminded myself that when I was a little girl, being told to shower was something of a treat too. I thought it was so much fun to have the water spraying down on my head, and sometimes my mother would even have to yell at me to get out. So I slipped off my jeans and underwear, and pulled off my top. I still didn't bother with a bra.

As I turned on the hot water, I noticed that the hair was on my legs again. It annoyed me that my mother was so right, but I grabbed my razor and shaving foam too, before I stepped into the shower. While the hot water came down on me, I shaved the hair from my legs. Then, I did my armpits too. Then I realized that there was more hair then I had thought. It wasn't just on my legs and arms, but on my chest and stomach, and I thought I could even feel some on my rear. I tried to shave it off, but then I noticed that there was more hair on my legs.

This was getting frustrating. I tried to shave my legs again, but now it seemed that as soon as I shaved, the hair came back even thicker then before. I tried my arms, my chest and then my legs again, but the hair still kept growing back. Finally, I brushed my hand against my face, and I felt hair there on my chin.

That scared me because it made me think that I was growing a beard. I had had heard of bearded ladies in circus sideshows, and I didn't want to become one. I rushed out of the shower to look in the bathroom mirror. After I cleared away the cloud of mist on the mirror, I gulped because I saw that there was wet hair not only on my face, but all over my body.

I screamed.

Or rather I tried to scream, but it came out more like a howl.

Then, all at once, I knew what was wrong. I remembered Mrs. Pritchett and her punch, and how she had mentioned the "werewolf effect". I decided that I should try and find Mrs. Pritchett. I considered using the stairs, but some instinct made me go the bathroom window instead. I opened it and leaped out of the window, landing safely on my feet in the back yard. It felt good being able to jump so well.

I ran to the fence and jumped over, once again feeling impressed with myself. I ran all the way to Mrs. Pritchett's house. Running was also much easier for me now. It didn't make me feel exhausted the way it did in gym class. When I got to Mrs. Pritchett's, I saw that there were several people in the front yard. At least they looked sort of like people. Some of them were dressed in black and had pale white faces. Others looked kind of hairy and wolf-like, the way I was. The really strange ones had bright orange heads, and when I got close to them, I saw that their heads were pumpkins with jack-o-lantern faces carved into them. And in the center of it all, was Mrs. Pritchett herself. She was dressed in a long black dress, which somehow made her look more elegant then she usually did.

"Well, well," she said when she saw me, "it looks like our other new guest has arrived. Welcome Becky, Welcome! We were just going to take care of the other newbie." She indicated a boy about my age, who looked perfectly normal except that his head was slumped over to one side as if there were something wrong with his neck.

Maybe I looked puzzled, because Mrs. Pritchett then said to me, "Jaimie got the headless effect. We're going to have to bring him inside and fix him up. Come on, inside everyone! I don't think that Jaimie wants to wait too much longer for a new head!"

She led us all into the house. There were still a casket and a guillotine in the parlor. "Now, Jaimie," said Mrs. Pritchett, "this part hurts a little bit, so I need you to be brave. Put your head right here." She guided his head into a spot on the guillotine. "Now, one, two, three." Mrs. Pritchett let out a loud cry and the guillotine came down slicing Jaimie's head off. "Hand me that jack-o-lantern over there," she called out. Someone gave it to her, and she placed it on Jaimie's neck where his head should be. "How's that?" she asked.

"I feel like a new man," said Jaimie with the mouth in his pumpkin head.

"Excellent," said Mrs. Pritchett. "Our other new friend is Becky here. She got the werewolf effect, so she needs no special attention except make sure that she has a good time tonight. I'm sure you other werewolves know how trying the time between the full moons can be for a werewolf." The other werewolves--those were the other hairy people who looked like me--snarled in agreement. "That said," went on Mrs. Pritchett, "it is Halloween! Now please enjoy yourselves."

Well, we did. The pumpkin-headed people were the loudest and rowdiest. Some of them wanted to ride on my back while I went running across the lawn on all fours. I thought that was fun. The vampires--the pale people in black--were a bit more dignified, but they were fun too. A few of them asked me to dance, so I stood on my hind legs, offered him one of my paws, and did a sort of waltz back and forth.

I had so much fun that I lost track of the time, and gradually began to feel light-headed. I was so happy I didn't care where I was or what I was doing. I just kept dancing and playing until I must have blacked out. . .

The next thing I knew, it was morning. I was lying on grass that was wet with dew. I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked around. I was on the lawn in front of Mrs. Pritchett's house. I looked at myself and saw that my skin was bare. Not only was there no hair except in the few places where it was supposed to be, but I had absolutely no clothes on.

This was embarrassing. Not to mention uncomfortable. I stood up and was just about to run to Mrs. Pritchett's door, and see if she could help me, when a familiar voice called, "What are you doing? You almost got me into trouble last night."

I turned and saw Jill walking up the street. She looked like she was on her way to school. I wasn't sure what to say, so I just let Jill go on talking. "Your mother called my mother last night and asked if I knew where you were. I had to keep saying over and over again that I had no idea where you would have gone. What happened to you?"

I ran up to Jill and smiled. "Jill, I just had the best Halloween of my life! And I hope that every Halloween after this is as cool. If you don't believe me, ask Mrs. Pritchett for some punch."

Jill backed away from me and pulled out her cell phone. "Don't come near me," she said. "I'm calling the police."

Well, the police came, and to make a long story short, I ended up here in this place where it's always white and my parents hardly ever come to visit.The orderlies come in and give me sponge baths. Sometimes they shave me too.

I don't like it here.

But I don't think I have to stay here much longer. You see, it's been just about a month, which means that pretty soon there will be another full moon night. And when that happens, I don't think these people will be strong enough to hold me in.