Halloween Story: All Hallows Eve

"Stop!" Marjorie managed to squeak at Elijah between giggles as he was tickling her. "You're gonna make me pee my pants!"

"That's gross, Marjorie," Elijah said as he stepped away.

"Well, it's true. You can't just keep tickling a person without consequences, Elijah Burns."

"We better head home anyway. It's getting pretty dark and we don't want to miss the trick-or-treating," Elijah said as he turned to leave.

"Wait," Marjorie hissed as she pulled him behind a tree. "Look. There're some kids coming. Let's scare them."

Elijah looked around the tree at the other kids. They looked pretty big to him so he wasn't too sure about scaring them. The one dressed like Frankenstein was as big as his dad!

"I don't know about this, Marjorie. Do you see how big they are? What if they chase us down and hurt us?"

"You big baby. They'll be too scared to chase us. You'll see, we'll all have a good laugh after they calm down. It is Halloween after all."

Elijah didn't want Marjorie to think he was a big baby. Lord knows she'd tell the whole town if he chickened out. He was scared, but he'd do it anyway. He always ended up doing whatever Marjorie wanted.

"Ok, let's do it," he whispered to Marjorie.

Marjorie looked around the grave yard. "Let's go hide over there behind that big headstone," she said as she pointed at Old Man Jacobs marker. "That way they're sure not to see us and we can jump out and scare them good."

Elijah and Marjorie made their way quietly to the headstone and hunkered down to wait. They watched as the other kids got closer. Their excitement was building. Marjorie knew this was going to be great fun! Elijah just wanted to get it over with. It seemed those kids were taking forever to get to the headstone.

Finally, the kids walked past. Marjorie and Elijah jumped out and yelled, "BOO!"

It didn't go the way Marjorie said though. The other kids kept screaming and screaming. Then Elijah started screaming, and everyone took off running in different directions.

When they stopped to catch their breath at the bottom of the hill, Elijah turned to Marjorie and asked, "What happened?"

"I don't know. I never dreamed they'd be that scared. We don't even have our Halloween costumes on yet," Marjorie sighed.

It was just like all the other times. Nobody ever wanted to play with them. They all just ran away.

***

Across town the other kids tried to explain what happened to their frantic parents. Everyone was talking at once and getting nowhere fast.

Finally one of the parents yelled, "Hold on a minute, one at a time!"

All the kids pushed John, the biggest, to the front to explain. After catching his breath he said, "Ghost jumped out at us in the cemetery!"

"John, you're too old to believe in ghost. It is Halloween. It was probably just some other kids trying to scare you," his mother said with exasperation.

"I've never saw a Halloween costume that glowed and was see through," he replied to the astonished parents.