Suzie’s Halloween Adventure
by
Tich Brewster
Halloween was little Suzie’s favorite day of the year. Her
favorite part was not just the bucketsful of candy, it was dressing up. She
loved buying material and working alongside her mother creating unique
costumes. This year she found the prettiest purple, and right away she decided
it would make the perfect witch costume. Her mother helped her cut the fabric
and sew it. Suzie’s mother even added pink around the collar and a ribbon of
pink around the base of the hat. Once it was done, she tried on her witch dress
and hat. It was perfect.
That night her mother took her to the festival down the
street. Her friend Timmy had dressed as a skeleton. “Cool costume,” Suzie said
to her friend.
Timmy smiled. “Thanks, but I think yours is the best one
here.”
That made Suzie beam with pride. She and Timmy went to the
games. They decided to toss rings. Timmy got more rings on the pole than Suzie, but they both won a handful of candy for participating.
“Hey, Suzie, awesome costume.” Suzie and Timmy looked up to
see their friend, Elijah walking toward them. He had a bucket full of candy and
a sucker hanging from his lips. Elijah had rolls of toilet paper wrapped around
his body like a mummy.
“Oh, very creative, Elijah. I like mummies.” Suzie said.
Elijah beamed. “Thank you. My mom helped me get the toilet
paper wrapped around me.”
The three friends visited all the games and collected as
much candy as their buckets could hold. As they walked back toward the cake
walk, a house across the street caught their eye. It was an abandoned house and
the gate on the fence was broken.
A group of kids ran out of the gate yelling, “Don’t go in
there, it’s haunted.”
Elijah’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Ooh, a real haunted
house. Let’s go check it out.”
“What?” Timmy shook his head and stepped back. “No way. What
if the ghost is really mean?”
“Maybe it’s not haunted.” Suzie looked both ways before
crossing the street with Elijah. She glanced back and saw Timmy looking at the
giant house with fear. “Come on, it’s just an adventure into an empty house.
There might be treasure in there.”
Suzie was afraid that Timmy would go back to the festival, but right before she entered the gate, Timmy yelled, “Hey, wait for me.” After
checking for traffic, he ran across the street. Now that the three of them were
together, they could search this old abandoned house for treasure. Maybe they
would find some toys they could take home.
As they neared the house they heard a loud groan. “Did you
hear that?” Elijah pointed at one of the upstairs windows. “I think I heard a
ghost.”
“Don’t be silly?” Suzie said. “There’s no such thing as
ghosts.” But then she heard a groan coming from the broken window. Or maybe ghosts do exist.
“I don’t know about this.” Timmy clutched the handle of his
trick-or-treat bucket. “This is scary.”
“You can stay here but I came for an adventure.” Suzie
pushed open the door that barely hung by its hinges.
The house was dark but the lights from the festival shown
through the windows giving her enough light to see. So far nothing scary, just
some furniture with sheets draped over them. Elijah came in, followed by Timmy.
The groan from upstairs sounded sad and tired so she carefully walked up the
stairs.
“Hello,” Suzie called out. She didn’t know if ghosts could
hear her, but she hoped that this one could because it sounded lonely. “Can you
hear me?”
This time the ghost didn’t groan, it whined. Suzie and her
friends followed the sound to a room that was two doors down the hall. The
whining quickly turned into panting and a loud bark. In the middle of the room
was a fluffy white dog with a brown spot around one eye. He was tangled in a
sheet and couldn’t get free.
Suzie set her bucket down and untangled the dog. He licked
her face when he was free. Looking at the wrinkled sheet, Suzie got a bright
idea. She searched the room and by luck found a pair of scissors. She cut eye
holes in the sheet and draped it over the dog. “There, now you have a costume.”
“I guess we really did find a ghost.” Timmy petted the dog
through it's ghost costume. “Can I call you Casper?”
The dog barked in approval.
“I like that name,” Elijah and Suzie said at the same time.
Suzie picked up her bucket of candy and said, “Now that we
found our treasure, let’s go back to the festival.”
