11-02-2008, 07:58 PM
Twas' Halloween many years ago. The year does not matter, only the date. A group of eleven children gathered ranging from ages eight to nineteen came together for their favourite holiday. Although the younger ones were not supposed to accompany the older ones they did anyways for one reason; they idolized the older ones. Dressed in costume they met at the park in their housing complex and waited a few minutes should any stragglers come along. As usual the lonely girl was late, skipping along in a princess dress, wearing her mother's makeup. Normally she was clumsy and accident prone, skinning her knees or spraining her ankles. Today was different though because she was able to be someone else. She was the pretty princess like the one in the movies. And as she arrived they all took off. Running in a cluster they bombarded each house screaming at the top of their lungs the precious words that would give them candy as a reward. For tricks they sang off-key Christmas carols and when a house was not giving out candy they would still bang madly on the door. The charade was wonderful to them all. Each one of them was smiling, beaming with Halloween spirit and pride, even the lonely girl. For two hours they went on, travelling further and further away from their homes in search of others that they had not yet visited. The lonely girl began to get worried that she wouldn’t be able to find her way home. The older ones, of course, waved her off and continued on. They claimed to know their way. So they continued on and at the base of a winding hill filled with houses they bet one another: who could get to the top before everyone else? The lonely girl was excited and as usual they were all extremely competitive with one another. The race started as an adult shouted 3, 2, 1, go! The lonely girl took off, dragging her sack of candy on the ground in her left hand while her right held up her dress. She ran to each door and knocked real hard before taking off to the next one. The rules were that they couldn’t cut across lawns so she followed their driveways so that she could stay off of the road. For once she was doing well in the competition. In fact she was winning. But then the unthinkable, one of the older kids came up from behind her and pulled on her candy bag to slow her down. The lonely girl let go of her dress to defend her hoard but she tripped, the fabric catching up her shoe. The older boy took off with a laugh while she fell, scrapping her face across the pavement of a house with no one home. The others passed her and laughed at her too while she lay there crying, shocked at the amount of blood she could feel coming from her face. The lonely girl was left behind; the kids took a short cut home. Lost and afraid she stayed where she was until a neighbour came outside to see what all the commotion was about. In seeing the girl the woman became motherly, scooping her up and asking for the girl to tell her where she lived. Then she was put in a car with a cold cloth and driven home. The kind stranger helped her, took her home to her mother who then cleaned up the cuts and threw away the ripped dress. The lonely girl never found Halloween to be so delightful ever again. Instead she always found herself staying at home away from the horrible group of people who left her to rot behind.
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