Week 8 Halloween!

“Mom! I can’t be a pumpkin AGAIN!” I protested on that crisp Friday afternoon. I couldn’t bear the thought of parading down my street in the same costume I had worn for the last two years – and my big sister the two years before that! Ugh.

I had to admit, it hadn’t been such a bad costume once-upon-a-time. But now the felt stem hat was droopy and wrinkled, and the orange fabric hung sack-like around my hips. No amount of plumping would prevent the feather pillows from clumping around my mid-section, making it hard to carry my goodie bag, and harder still to carry my head high.

Mom studied the whining gourd with pleading eyes standing there in her kitchen. At first she looked slightly annoyed, but then a smile crept its way to her lips. “Well, honey, I don’t know what else we can come up with on short notice, but I think I have to agree. That costume makes you look like a potbellied squash for certain.”

“You could make that dragonfly costume we saw in the McCalls pattern book!” I suggested hopefully.

“I don’t think so, punkin’,” she said, smiling at her own humor. “That one is too complicated for me to tackle at this point. I’m not the seamstress my mom was. Of course, she wasn’t teaching full-time while mothering three children either.” Mom dove for my one-year-old brother at that moment, just as he reached for the cord of the antique lamp standing in the corner of the living room.

“No,” she said to me after redirecting Steffen to his Tonka truck, “I think you will have to see what you can do with the big box in the garage. Maybe you can go as a robot or a giant grocery bag or something.”

I shuffled down the hall to my bedroom and plopped my padded bottom on the floor. What could I do? I didn’t relish the idea of stumbling around inside of a big box. I wouldn’t be able to see what was going on. I wanted to participate fully in the Halloween experience, something I couldn’t do if I couldn’t run away from the neighborhood boys after beaning them with the acorns from Mrs. Anderson’s oak.

I needed a good costume. Fast.

This is the beginning of a Halloween story loosely based on my childhood memories. How do you think it should end?

This week you may choose between two writing options.
Either
1. Write the rest of this story as you think it should happen
OR
2. Write your own story about a memorable Halloween experience of your own.

Remember to leave out the boring parts and focus on the details in the most exciting part of the story. You may publish your story as a comment on my blog or post it on your own blog.

Challenge – Help your reader get into your story by including dialogue (people talking). Important rules: Use quotation marks to show what your characters are saying. Start a new paragraph each time someone new is talking.